IRE

NICAR’s copy of the Housing Mortgage Disclosure Act dataset for 2007 has been updated. This dataset, maintained by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, provides information about property loans in the United States, including, for each loan application:

• the race, ethnicity and gender of the applicant
• how much money was requested in the loan
• the annual income of the applicant
• if the loan was considered “subprime” — defined in this dataset by being three points higher than the prime rate — how much higher its interest rate was
• The U.S. Census tract for the property location — highly useful for mapping

Reporters have used HMDA data for years to report housing trends with authority; in the current economic climate, that effort has become all the more important. Did lending institutions in your state grant fewer subprime loans than last year? By how much? This dataset can help answer those questions. Please contact the Database Library with any questions.

I am proud to announce that purchases of datasets completely online, without the use of a phone or fax machine, is now available to members for most of the data we sell at the NICAR Database Library.

The new online store can be found via links on our main site at www.ire.org, or you can go directly to data.nicar.org.

To enforce the long-standing policy of only allowing journalists who are IRE Members to purchase data from the library, the online store requires visitors to register for the site. (It’s worth the effort; you can save it for accessing new features as we continue to improve our site.)

Within 24-48 hours, IRE staff members will verify whether a registrant is, in fact, an IRE Member.  Members in good standing will then be able to make purchases with a credit card using our new shopping cart.

On a personal note, it is my hope that this new Web application will enable us to better serve our members, who work daily in an ever-challenging environment where every minute counts.

Of course, you’ll still be able to purchase data the old fashioned way — and we certainly encourage people to call the library for our analysis and consultation services. But this new feature will hopefully be a boon to those members interested in purchasing datasets quickly.

Questions? Please feel free to email (datalib@nicar.org) or call us
573-884-7711.

- Jeremy Milarsky