Refis Roar While Purchase Loans Pull Back
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ccording to ATTOM Data Solutions’ Q2 2020 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report, there were 1.69 million refinance mortgages secured by residential properties (1 to 4 units) in Q2 2020. That number is up almost 50% from Q1 2020 and more than 100% from Q2 2019, to the highest level in seven years. ATTOM’s most recent residential mortgage origination analysis reported that with interest rates hovering at historic lows of around 3% for a 30-year fixed-rate loan, refinance mortgages originated Q2 2020 represented an estimated $513 billion in total dollar volume. That number was up 130% Q2 2019, to the highest point in almost 17 years. The report noted that refinance loans helped drive the total number of home loans in Q2 2020 up to 2.72 million, an 11-year high. Homeowners rolling over old mortgages into new ones accounted for 62% of all lending activity in Q2 2020, up from 54.5% of loans in Q1 2020 and from 39.6% in Q2 2019.
WIDESPREAD GROWTH The analysis also revealed that residential refinance mortgage originations increased from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020 in all but one of the 211 metro areas that had a population greater than 200,000 and at least 1,000 total loans. The number at least doubled in 158, or 74.9%, of those metro
areas, led by Madison, Wisconsin (up 403.7%); Hilton Head, South Carolina (up 358.7%); Charleston, South Carolina (up 322.4%); Greenville, South Carolina (up 321.8%) and Lincoln, Nebraska (up 269.2%). The Q2 2020 analysis noted that metro areas with at least 1 million people that saw refinance activity at least doubled, year over year, in Q2 2020 included Washington, D.C. (up 219.9%); Milwaukee, Wisconsin (up 213.1%); Austin, Texas (up 211.9%); Raleigh, North Carolina (up 205.3%) and Birmingham, Alabama (up 198.4%). The report stated that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was the only metro area where refinance mortgages decreased in Q2, measured year over year (down 5.7%), while those with the smallest annual increases were Lexington, Kentucky (up 7.5%); Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (up 8.6%); Syracuse, New York (up 22%) and Gulfport, Mississippi (up 25.4%). The top 10 refinance mortgage lenders in the second quarter of 2020 include: Quicken Loans (138,790 loans refinanced); Freedom Mortgage (56,413 loans refinanced); United Wholesale Mortgage (39,024 loans refinanced); Wells Fargo Bank (37,877 loans refinanced); LoanDepot (32,110 loans refinanced); JP Morgan Chase (26,423 loans refinanced); Bank of America (23,389 loans refinanced); Caliber Home Loans (22,371 loans refinanced); Mr Cooper (22,305 loans refinanced); and US Bank (20,847 loans refinanced).
NATIONAL MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE |
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