Refis Roar While Purchase Loans Pull Back

Refis Roar While Purchase Loans Pull Back

According 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).