With interest rates sliding down over 100 basis points during 2019, customers flocked to local lenders seeking help to save significant amounts of money on their mortgages through refinancing.
Loan originators across the Granite State were busy as bees in 2019, handling a 13 percent increase in the total number of residential loans and a 30 percent increase in refinances.
The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review, has compiled from its proprietary loan originators module the top loan originators of calendar year 2019. The originators are ranked by number of loans, loan volume statewide, by region and by the institution with which they are most closely affiliated.
Loan originators across the state processed 10,888 residential loans worth $2.75 billion in 2019, up from 9,482 worth $2.15 billion in 2018. Purchase activity statewide was $1.26 billion last year compared to $1.18 billion in 2018. The dollar value of refinancing activity grew by a third, from 4,729 loans worth $970.95 million in 2018 to 6,795 worth $1.49 billion in 2019.
This surge in customer demand for refis began in late 2018. Mortgage interest rates started a long slide from an average of 4.94 percent on a 30-year fixed-rate loan in November 2018 to between 3.5 percent and 3.78 percent as fall 2019 turned to winter. Those rates would only sink lower as the coronavirus crisis grew, causing a flight to long-term investments and causing the Federal Reserve to begin large-scale purchases of securities.
Some of the biggest winners of this trend were found among the state’s credit union loan originators.
Who were New Hampshire’s top loan originators in 2019? View the full statewide and regional rankings to find out.
Stacy Gagnon of Triangle Credit Union, 2019’s most prolific credit union loan originator as ranked by number of loans, increased her refi output from 130 non-purchase loans in 2018 to 173 in 2019. Jennifer Brooks, the most prolific credit union loan originator by number of loans in Connecticut River valley and the state’s far north, increased her total number of loans from 68 to 104, by increasing the number of non-purchase loans she originated from 38 to 67.
The state’s mortgage company loan originators were not to be outdone, however. Envoy Mortgage LTD’s Sarah Haberkorn, the most productive mortgage company loan originator in central New Hampshire by volume and number of loans grew her originations from 89 loans worth $17.87 million to 106 loans worth $23.98 million.
New faces also appeared in the statewide rankings of the top 10 loan originators by volume and number of loans.
Bank of New Hampshire’s Tammie Mahoney vaulted into the top 10 by increasing her purchase and non-purchase originations to 101 loans worth $21.43 million. She landed at No. 9 in the ranking of bank loan originators by volume and No. 6 by number of loans.
Jim Giller of Mascoma Bank took fifth place on the list of bank loan originators by volume with 80 loans worth $27.16 million, very nearly double his 2018 performance of 54 loans worth $13.24 million.
While New Hampshire’s dozens of loan originators clearly made hay while the sun shone in the last year of what was the longest economic expansion in American history, the skies could be clouding over for 2020 thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. With economic uncertainty everywhere thanks to the uncertain impact of social distancing practices, New Hampshire saw 27 percent fewer home sales closed in April year-over-year, according to the Warren Group.
While some market observers are hoping for a resurgence in activity as buyers and sellers who would have transacted in March and April come off the sidelines following Gov. Chris Sununu’s decision to reopen the state economy this month, others fear the economic damage from the shutdown could take time to recover from.
