New York Fed Overview – Explore Maps: “Community Credit Profiles provide local information on credit access and use to help inform community development policymakers and practitioners. Indicators are updated twice a year at the national, state, and county levels to enable peer comparisons and program and activity benchmarks. Homeownership is a widely acknowledged marker of economic well-being, especially for under-served communities. As such, monitoring and assessing the health of local mortgage markets is of continuing interest for a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Mortgages are only a partial indicator of community well-being, however. Other Community Credit Profiles will examine community credit more directly from the perspective of local borrowers and view mortgages as a component of the entire portfolio of credit products and services held by individuals.

The Mortgage Market Profiles view our communities through the lens of 1-4 family mortgages and address the following types of concerns:

• To what extent have local home prices recovered relative to the national peak levels of April 2006? Under the Home Prices tab, if the measure is positive, then prices have fully recovered and homeowners are most likely once again building equity in their homes.
• What percent of existing-home sales are due to distressed properties? This measure helps gauge the possible influence of distressed properties on local housing markets.
• What percent of 1-4 family mortgages are 90 or more days past due? A high value for this measure indicates financial difficulties and distress for local homeowners.
• What percent of 1-4 family mortgages are in foreclosure? The higher this measure, the more distressed homeowners and/or properties in that geography. (For locational comparisons, please note that these values are higher in the so-called ‘judicial’ states because of their legal process).”