U.S. MORTGAGE LENDING RISES IN Q3 2024 AMID REFINANCING SURGE, BUT REMAINS BELOW HISTORIC HIGHS
Residential Lending Grows Just 2 Percent Even as Rates Keep Declining; Refinance and Home-Equity Deals Rise While Purchase Loans Decrease
ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, released its third-quarter 2024 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report, which shows that 1.67 million mortgages secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) were issued in the United States during the third quarter. That led to modest quarterly and annual increases of 1.9 percent.
The growth marked the second straight quarterly gain – a pattern not seen for more than three years. But even as home-mortgage rates dropped close to 6 percent for a 30-year fixed loan by the end of Q3 2024, the increase in business for lenders was far below a spike during the Spring of 2024 and still left total mortgages off by nearly two-thirds from a high point hit in 2021.
The latest trend resulted from improvements in refinance and home-equity lending as opposed to more buyers taking out loans. Mortgage rollovers increased 6.9 percent quarterly, to about 588,000, while home-equity packages went up 2.3 percent, to roughly 297,000.
Those improvements more than made up for a 1.7 percent decrease in purchase loans, to 782,000, as the annual peak home-buying season wound down and supplies of properties for sale remained tight.
Measured monetarily, lenders issued roughly $550 billion worth of residential mortgages in the third quarter of 2024. That was up 2.9 percent from the second quarter of 2024 and 6.6 percent from the third quarter of last year.
The differing pattern of increases among various loan types slightly raised the portion of all residential mortgages represented by refinance and home-equity credit lines, while lowering the purchase component. Still, purchase loans remained the most common form of mortgages around the U.S. during the third quarter, comprising almost half.
“Mortgage lending rose again in the third quarter, but at a far slower pace than during the Spring of this year when activity spiked nearly 25 percent,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “The latest increase, small as it was, likely came mainly from homeowners trading higher-rate loans they got in 2021 and 2022 for cheaper mortgages resulting from declining mortgage rates. But it looked like the third-quarter rate dip wasn’t as helpful for purchase lending as buyers kept facing elevated prices and low supplies of properties for sale.”
The latest lending trends reflected another round of mixed forces affecting home sales and the cost of borrowing. Average 30-year mortgage rates dropped a full percentage point in the third quarter, the kind of decline that can save homeowners thousands of dollars a year on all kinds of loans. But the number of homes for sale remained at some of the lowest levels in the past decade, which continues putting a damper on the market, and purchase loans.
Total lending up again but still far below peaks
Banks and other lenders issued a total of 1,666,816 residential mortgages in the third quarter of 2024, up from 1,636,073 in the second quarter of 2024 and from 1,635,056 in the third quarter of 2023.
Total activity rose for the second quarter in a row – a pattern that hadn’t happened since early in 2021. But the latest figure still remained 60 percent behind a recent high point of 4,165,695 hit in the first quarter of 2021 when average 30-year mortgages rate hovered around 3 percent.
A total of $553.1 billion was lent to homeowners and buyers in the third quarter of this year. That was up from $537.5 billion in the prior quarter and from $518.6 billion in the third quarter of 2023, although still less than half the recent peak of $1.3 trillion in 2021.
Overall lending activity also rose quarterly and annually in a majority of metropolitan areas around the U.S. with enough data to analyze. The total increased from the second quarter to the third quarter of this year in 125, or 60.4 percent, of the 207 metropolitan statistical areas that had a population of 200,000 or more and at least 1,000 total residential mortgages issued from July through September of 2024.
The largest quarterly increases came in Anchorage, AK (total lending up 78.6 percent from the second quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2024); Yuma, AZ (up 33.3 percent); Ann Arbor, MI (up 33 percent); Huntington, WV (up 21 percent) and Trenton, NJ (up 20.5 percent).
Metro areas with a population of least 1 million that had the biggest increases in total loans from the second to the third quarter of 2024 were Rochester, NY (up 20.1 percent); Detroit, MI (up 14.7 percent); Grand Rapids, MI (up 13.5 percent); San Diego, CA (up 13.2 percent) and Hartford, CT (up 12.7 percent).
Metro areas with enough data to analyze where lending went down the most quarterly were Boulder, CO (down 44.3 percent); St. Louis, MO (down 36.5 percent); Jackson, MS (down 25.2 percent); Myrtle Beach, SC (down 20.4 percent) and Springfield, MO (down 19.4 percent)
Measured annually, the largest increases in total lending among metro areas with a population of at least 1 million were in Orlando, FL (total lending up 29.3 percent from the third quarter of 2023 to the third quarter of 2024); San Jose, CA (up 28.7 percent); San Diego, CA (up 27.9 percent); Honolulu, HI (up 25.9 percent) and Tucson, AZ (up 17.6 percent).
Purchase mortgages decline amid tight market but still make up almost 50 percent of all lending
While overall third-quarter lending activity increased, the number of mortgages issued to home buyers was down both quarterly and annually. The count of purchase loans remained only half of where it stood in 2021.
The third-quarter total of 782,220 was off from 796,046 in the second quarter of 2024, 814,610 in the third quarter of 2023 and 1.6 million in mid-2021.
The latest dollar volume of purchase loans, $306.6 billion, was 2.5 percent less than the $314.3 billion second-quarter level, although still up 0.8 percent from $304.1 billion a year earlier. It sat 43 percent below the 2021 peak
Residential purchase-mortgage originations decreased quarterly in 55.1 percent of the 207 metro areas in the report and annually in 56 percent of those markets.
The largest quarterly decreases were in Boulder, CO (purchase loans down 50.1 percent from the second quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2024); St. Louis, MO (down 42.4 percent); Springfield, MO (down 25.7 percent); Savannah, GA (down 25 percent) and Lake Havasu City, AZ (down 23.1 percent).
Including St. Louis, the biggest quarterly decreases in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million in the third quarter of 2024 came in Austin, TX (down 20.6 percent); San Francisco, CA (down 17.7 percent); Tucson, AZ (down 16.8 percent) and Atlanta, GA (down 15 percent).
The top annual decreases in purchase lending in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million were in St. Louis, MO (down 50.3 percent from the third quarter of 2023 to the third quarter of 2024); Austin, TX (down 48.2 percent); Houston, TX (down 29.7 percent); Dallas, TX (down 22.5 percent) and Raleigh, NC (down 21.3 percent).
Refinance mortgages up to highest level in two years
As interest rates declined during the third quarter of this year, lenders issued 587,691 residential refinance mortgages. That was up from 549,812 in the second quarter of 2024 and 539,738 a year earlier.
The most recent figure stood out as the most since the third quarter of 2022. It represented the latest in a series of increases following a spike in interest rates in 2021 and 2022 that caused refinance lending to plummet more than 80 percent.
The $191.1 billion dollar volume of refinance packages in the third quarter of 2024 was up 13.5 percent from $168.5 billion in the prior quarter and up 16.1 percent, from $164.7 billion, in the third quarter of 2023.
Refinancing activity increased quarterly in 75.8 percent and annually in 75.4 percent of the metro areas around the U.S. with enough data to analyze.
The largest quarterly increases were in Anchorage, AK (refinance loans up 59.1 percent from the second to the third quarter of 2024); Ann Arbor, MI (up 46.9 percent); Vallejo, CA (up 46.7 percent); Colorado Springs, CO (up 42.4 percent) and Charlottesville, VA (up 41.7 percent).
Metro areas with a population of least 1 million where refinance activity increased most quarterly were San Jose, CA (up 28.7 percent); Milwaukee, WI (up 27.4 percent); San Diego, CA (up 27.2 percent); Richmond, VA (up 24.4 percent) and Los Angeles, CA (up 24 percent).
Metro areas with a population of least 1 million and the largest year-over-year increases in the number of refinance loans were San Diego, CA (up 62.5 percent from the third quarter of 2023 to the third quarter of 2024); San Jose, CA (up 59.1 percent); Los Angeles, CA (up 40.3 percent); Seattle, WA (up 39.8 percent) and Las Vegas, NV (up 39.3 percent).
Refinance packages comprised 35.3 percent of all loan originations in the third quarter of 2024. That was up from 33.6 percent in the prior quarter but far less than the 65.8 percent portion in early 2021.
HELOC lending up quarterly and annually
Home-equity lines of credit (HELOCs) also increased, to 296,905 in the latest three-month period. That was up from 290,215 in the second quarter of 2024 and 280,708 in the third quarter of last year. The improvement continued to reverse losses sustained from 2022 into early 2024.
The $55.4 billion volume of HELOC loans in the third quarter of 2024 was up from $54.7 billion in the prior quarter and from the $49.8 billion lent in the third quarter of last year.
HELOCs comprised 17.8 percent of all loans in the most recent quarter. That was almost the same as the 17.7 percent portion in the second quarter of 2024 but still almost four times the level recorded in early 2021.
HELOC mortgage originations increased from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2024 in 63.1 percent of the metro areas analyzed. The largest quarterly increases in metro areas with a population of at least 1 million were in Fresno, CA (up 33.4 percent); Hartford, CT (up 29.5 percent); Louisville, KY (up 22.9 percent); San Antonio, TX (up 20.8 percent) and San Jose, CA (up 20.6 percent).
FHA mortgage level holds steady while VA loan portion rises
Lenders issued 229,196 mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) during the third quarter, or 13.8 percent of all residential property loans. That was unchanged from the second quarter of this year after 10 consecutive quarterly increases but was down from 15.1 percent in the third quarter of 2023.
Residential loans backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) totaled 97,669, or 5.9 percent of all residential property loans originated in the third quarter of 2024. That was up from 5 percent in the previous quarter and 4.8 percent in the third quarter of 2023.
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SOURCE ATTOM
