Home Mortgage Lending Rebounds, ATTOM Finds

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Just over 1.6 million mortgages secured by residential property (1 to 4 units) were issued in the United States during the second quarter, per ATTOM, Irvine, Calif.

The figure represents a 23% increase over the prior three-month period, ATTOM’s second-quarter 2024 U.S. Residential Property Mortgage Origination Report said.

The spike still left total residential lending activity down 1.6% from the second quarter of 2023 and 61.2% from a high point hit in 2021. But it marked the first gain in a year and boosted the number of residential loans back up close to the level from a year earlier.

The rebound came amid a strong Spring home-buying season and mortgage interest rates that dipped downward after months of increases, the report noted.

“The mortgage industry got one of its biggest boosts in years during the second quarter, supported by a combination of the usual Springtime home-buyer demand coupled with more attractive mortgage rates,” ATTOM CEO Rob Barber said.

Barber cautioned not to read too much into one quarter. “A similar trend occurred last Spring, with lending dropping off significantly later in the year,” he said. “But with interest rates settling down and projections for more cuts from the Federal Reserve over the coming months, it wouldn’t be surprising if business increased even more for lenders over the rest of 2024, or at least didn’t drop significantly.”

The increase in overall lending resulted from improvements across all major categories of residential loans, especially for home buying. Purchase-loan activity jumped 32.7% quarterly, to about 783,000, refinance deals rose by 10.3%, to about 546,000, and home-equity credit lines shot up 26.5%, to about 286,000, the report said. Measured monetarily, lenders issued nearly $533 billion worth of residential mortgages in the second quarter. That was up 27.6% from early 2024 and 1.1% from the second quarter of last year.