Mar 25

Mortgage Amounts Reach Record Highs

Mortgage Amounts Reach Record Highs

 

Mortgage Amounts Reach Record Highs. Image courtesy of hywards / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mortgage Amounts Reach Record Highs. Image courtesy of hywards / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A close look at the average size of purchase loans may be an indication of where most of the housing market is being fueled by these days. And if that’s the case – the upper-end of the housing market is the clear winner.

The average loan size for a home purchase was $294,900 during the week ending March 6 – a record high, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Average purchase loan amounts are exceeding levels reached prior to the recession, at a time when home prices had been surging to unsustainable heights, MBA reports. From 2011 to December 2014, the average purchase loan amount has risen nearly 32 percent.

Lynn M. Fisher, the Mortgage Banker Association’s vice president for research and economics, told The New York Times that home prices may be rising more quickly for larger homes, which could be skewing the loan average upward. However, she said what’s more likely is that the majority of properties being sold may be at the high-end of the price range.

“The mix of people buying is changing,” Fisher told The New York Times. “More of the bigger stuff is transacting.”

Buyers of low-end properties or those looking for homes priced below $250,000 are “generally of moderate credit and are having trouble or being intimidated from applying for mortgages,” Lawrence Yun, the chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®, told The New York Times. “While on the upper end, given the stock market bull run of the past six years, they have done very well financially. The stock market expansion has given a comfort level at the top tier of families to go ahead and apply.”

Also hurting the lower end of the market is the limited number of homes for sale. The lower end of the market has seen some of the biggest inventory problems, Yun says. Investors, paying in all-cash, have snatched up bargain properties and shut out some traditional or first-time buyers. The lower-priced transactions paid in all cash are not included in the mortgage application data, which could also explain the disparity between loan size and home prices, Yun points out.

But homebuilders appear to mostly be targeting the upper-end of the market too.

“We are seeing a major price boost on the newly constructed home,” Yun says. “And there will be an ongoing shortage of inventory on the lower end.”

Source: “Mortgage Amounts Rising More Quickly Than Home Prices,” The New York Times (March 20, 2015)

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