Banks, credit unions and mortgage companies made 78,811 purchase and refinance loans statewide, worth $36.47 billion throughout 2021.
Also-rans in prior years became 2021’s champions among the battle to be the top lenders in New Hampshire amid a superheated housing market, according to the latest yearly analysis of mortgage data by The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review.
And while many of last year’s top banks retained their familiar place in the ranks of the state’s most prolific lenders, most saw their overall numbers of home purchase loans decline by not-insignificant margins as the stressed housing market took its toll.
Banks, credit unions and mortgage companies made 78,811 purchase and refinance loans statewide, worth $36.47 billion throughout 2021.
As The Registry Review previously reported, New Hampshire’s housing market appears to be caught in a negative feedback loop. High home prices deter move-up and downsizing buyers from listing, shrinking the total single-family inventory to depths not seen since 2005. This, in turn, intensifies demand for the listings that do come onto the market, sending prices higher– the median single-family home sale price was $375,000 last year, 17 percent increase over 2020 and a 32 percent increase over 2019. And with most towns statewide still resistant to new development, the supply of newly built homes has not been able to catch up with demand.
Among banks, lending for the purchase of single-family homes, Lebanon’s Mascoma Bank sprinted past 2020 top lender Citizens to claim the top spot, with 145 loans worth $46.66 million. Meanwhile, St. Mary’s Bank and Service Credit Union retained their dominating positions on the credit union rankings, making 166 and 122 loans worth $57.5 million and $32.66 million, respectively. The state’s most prolific mortgage lender was CMG Mortgage, which beat out 2020 top lender Residential Mortgage Services with 1,224 loans worth $399.31 billion.
Who are New Hampshire’s top lenders? See our rankings here.
But the shrinking number of home sales statewide showed in these top lenders’ tallies. Mascoma took second place among banks last year with 199 single-family purchase loans. St. Mary’s Bank made 192 such loans. And CMG made 1,338 loans.
Last year ended with a total of 14,213 single-family sales according to The Warren Group, 5 percent down from 2020’s tally and a 13 percent decline over 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the 2020 housing market upside-down.
The refinance market was where lenders truly shined last year. With the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage’s interest rate staying at or below 3 percent for much of 2021, lenders were able to beat 2020’s bumper crop of single-family refis: 43,559 worth $11.11 billion compared to 2020’s 41,140 worth $10.62 billion.
The most prolific residential refinance lenders was Rocket Mortgage – formerly Quicken Loans – with 6,551 loans worth $1.59 billion. Quicken had been 2020’s top refi lender, as well, but only made 4,570 loans worth $1.1 billion.
These persistently low interest rates certainly gave a big boost to residential mortgage originations, but they were bad news for banks dealing with margin compression and a pile-up of deposits thanks to federal economic aid and pandemic restrictions that curbed consumer spending.
In response, many lenders turned to commercial loans, just as the state’s multifamily and industrial real estate sectors caught fire. Bank of New Hampshire was the state’s top commercial purchase bank lender, with 51 loans worth $57.3 million, vaulting over last year’s top bank lender Primary Bank. St. Mary’s Credit Union retained its strong position among its peers with 39 loans worth $16.96 million, while CMG mortgage bested all commercial purchase lenders with 56 loans worth $18.4 million.
Will these lenders remain on top in 2022? Uncertainty abounds with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sending oil prices spiking and threatening to make inflation worse. At the same time, the Federal Reserve is likely to raise its interest rates soon, potentially spelling the end of the two-year refinance boom and cutting many buyers out of the housing market. And the year is not even three months old.
