Dive Brief:

• Data from 7,400 lenders show that about 9.4 million mortgages were made in 2012, and refinancing accounted for 70% of them.
• Buyers are having trouble getting together down payments.
• At the 2006 height of the boom, loans that were eligible under the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act had a lower delinquency rate than the average.

Dive insight:

An increase in mortgage-lending that came with low interest rates last year was better for people refinancing their homes than for buyers trying to acquire new homes. As builders have been arguing,  tighter credit is limiting lending, with the average credit score for a mortgage going from 701 in 2006 to 728 in 2010, the Fed analysis found.