WASHINGTON - The Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that originations of mortgages on 1-4 family homes totaled $266.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 1997, up 40 percent from the same quarter in 1996.

Other findings for the Fourth Quarter 1997 HUD Survey of Mortgage Lending Activity include:

Primary Mortgage Market: 1-4 Family Long-Term Mortgage Originations

• FHA insured loan originations in the fourth quarter of 1997 were $24.2 billion, a 36 percent increase from the same quarter in 1996. FHA's share of home loan originations was 9 percent, an increase from the 7 percent of a year ago.

• Mortgage companies were the top lender category in the fourth quarter 1997, originating $171.4 billion in home loans, or 64 percent of the total. This volume was up 60 percent from the fourth quarter 1996.

• Commercial banks produced $52.6 billion in home originations, registering second with a 20 percent market share. The quarterly volume was up 12 percent from 1996.

• Savings and loan associations were third, originating a 16 percent share with $36.9 billion, up 32 percent from the same quarter in 1996.

Multifamily Long-Term Mortgage Originations

• The fourth quarter multifamily lending was $16.6 billion, up 31 percent from 1996.

Sources of Funds:

• Home mortgage loan sales totaled $358 billion in the fourth quarter of 1997, nearly double the number of sales from the same quarter a year ago.

• With $42.8 billion, commercial banks were responsible for 17 percent of the net acquisitions of home loans in the fourth quarter.

• Total mortgage loan repayments were $239.7 billion, up 16 percent from $205.9 billion in repayments made during the fourth quarter 1996.

  Revisions were made to the following lender groups for the months indicated:

  • Mutual Savings Banks.........................Jan. to Sept. 1997
  • Mortgage Companies...........................Jan. to Sept. 1997
  • Private Non-Insured Pension Funds.....Jan. to Sept. 1997
  • Savings & Loan Associations.............July to Sept. 1997

IMPORTANT NOTE TO USERS OF THE SURVEY OF MORTGAGE LENDING ACTIVITY:

HUD is consistently striving to enhance the reliability and accuracy of this important survey. Towards this effort a competitive contract was awarded to improve the collection of commercial bank and mutual savings bank mortgage transaction data. The successful vendor selected to perform this challenging and valuable work is the American Bankers Association (ABA). As a part of this improvement effort, the samples for the commercial banks and mutual savings banks have been redrawn and new benchmark expansion weighting factors have been created. In some situations, the refined methodology has resulted in substantial revisions to the previously reported 1997 fourth Quarter commercial bank data; and in a few cases, a significant shift in the level of activity has occurred compared to historical data. Because the HUD survey includes mortgages held by banks and bank branches in U.S. possessions and territories but excludes real estate loans held by foreign banking offices in the U.S., the commercial bank and mutual savings bank holdings reported in the tables differ slightly from the comparable figures reported in the Federal Reserve Board's Federal Reserve Bulletin and Flow of Funds Accounts publications.

The PUBLIC AFFAIRS BULLETIN BOARD at HUD has been discontinued.