ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property, and real estate data, today released its fourth-quarter 2023 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report, which shows that 1.35 million mortgages secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) were issued in the United States during the fourth quarter, representing a 13.8 percent decline from the prior quarter. The drop-off marked the tenth in the last 11 quarters.
The fourth-quarter fallback left total residential lending activity down 16.5 percent from a year earlier and 67.7 percent from a high point hit in the first quarter of 2021. It came amid another period of elevated home prices and mortgage rates along with low supplies of homes for sale.
Ongoing declines in lending activity during the fourth quarter resulted from losses in all major categories of residential lending. Purchase-loan activity went down another 18.4 percent quarterly, to about 618,000, while refinance deals slumped 7.9 percent, to 488,000. Home-equity credit lines sank 12.7 percent, to 241,000.
Measured monetarily, lenders issued $417.4 billion worth of residential mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2023. That was down 14.9 percent from the third quarter of 2023 and 18.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2022.
The different pace of change among various loan types helped raise the portion of all residential mortgages represented by refinance packages back above one-third, although that level remained far less than where it was three years ago before interest rates started to climb above historically low levels. Purchase loans continued to slip back below half of all mortgages but were still the most common form of mortgage. Home-equity loans dipped further below 20 percent of all activity.
“Multiple powerful forces continued to conspire against the mortgage industry during the fourth quarter, slicing back huge portions of their business,” said Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM. “There were signs during the peak buying season of 2022 that…
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