The residential mortgage marketplace has come a very long way since 2008; how healthy though, truly, is that marketplace?

On the surface, the news is highly encouraging: according to new data compiled by the Federal Reserve, banks handed out more mortgages in 2012 than in any year since 2007.

As with all news concerning the housing market, though, there was more to that statistic than meets the eye, so with a little help from the Wall Street Journal, which burrowed quite deeply into the Fed’s numbers, we put together the following infographic on the six most important findings in the Fed’s report: