ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, today released its fourth-quarter 2022 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report, which shows that 1.52 million mortgages secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) were originated in the fourth quarter of 2022 in the United States. That figure was down 24 percent from the third quarter of 2022, marking the seventh quarterly decrease in a row, and down 55 percent from Q4 2021.
The ongoing decline in residential lending resulted from some of the largest downturns in both refinance and purchase loan activity this century along with the first drop in home-equity lending in a year. The contraction continued as the 11-year U.S. housing market boom stalled in the second half of last year amid rising mortgage rates, consumer price inflation and other signs of economic uncertainty.
During a period when average mortgage interest rates doubled to near 7 percent for 30-year fixed loans, lenders issued just $476 billion worth of mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2022. That was down quarterly by 27 percent and annually by 57 percent.
Within the overall activity, there were 708,739 loans granted to home purchasers in the fourth quarter of 2022, down 26 percent from the third quarter of 2022 and down 45 percent from the fourth quarter of 2021. The dollar volume of purchase mortgages dropped 28 percent quarterly and 44 percent annually, to $257 billion.
On the refinance side, only 496,221 mortgages were rolled over into new ones. That was down 27 percent quarterly, and down 73 percent annually. The dollar volume of refinance loans was down 27 percent from the prior quarter and 73 percent annually, to $158 billion.
Even home-equity lending dropped, by 16 percent in the last few months of 2022, to a total of 313,973. The decline followed growth in five of the previous six quarters.
“The lending industry experienced a triple-dose of hits in the fourth quarter of last year as mortgage…
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