ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates rural mortgage finance activity and lending institutions using time series analyses from ten years of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data and regulatory reporting from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve and the Office the Comptroller of the Currency. Specific strategies presented from the analyses include expansion and increased inclusion of rural "assessment" areas for financial investment through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and enactment of rural-specific "Duty to Serve" requirements and efforts by Government Sponsored Entities. In the rural-specific components of the plan, the Enterprises are to be rated on the level of Federal Housing Finance Agency activity related to the purchase of loans from low- and moderate-income borrowers in specified "rural areas." The chapter discusses a study which explored a proposal to encourage more community development activity outside of metropolitan areas by changing the CRA low- or moderate-income census tract classification to include outside metropolitan areas experiencing high poverty, high unemployment and population loss.
