Between last year, this year and next year — economists at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. have slashed their estimate of industry-wide originations by more than $200 billion.
From July 1 through Sept. 30 of this year, residential loan production by all primary U.S. home lenders is expected to amount to $464 billion.
The total, which includes loans to refinance an existing mortgage and loans to finance a home purchase, is then expected to sink to $384 billion in the fourth-quarter.
Freddie Mac, which reported the latest figures in its July 2018 Economic & Housing Market Forecast, cut the outlook from last month, when originations were expected to fall from $480 billion in the third quarter to just $400 billion during the final-three months of the year.
Based on refinance share, the secondary lender has the current quarter’s refinance forecast at $125 billion. The fourth-quarter projection fell to $88 billion from $92 billion previously expected.
Purchase-money production is expected to drop from $339 billion in third quarter to $296 billion in the last quarter. The previous outlook had volume retreating from $355 billion to $308 billion.
For all of 2017, Freddie estimates there were $0.654 trillion in refinances and $1.164 trillion in purchase transactions for a total of $1.818 trillion. The forecast was lowered from the preceding month’s $0.680 trillion in refinances and $1.208 trillion in purchase financing for overall originations of $1.888 trillion.
Total originations are predicted to rise from $1.686 trillion this year to $1.691 trillion in 2019. A month earlier, Freddie had production going from $1.750 trillion to $1.760 trillion next year.
Refinances are expected to tumble from $0.489 trillion in 2018 to $0.406 trillion next year. Last month Freddie estimated 2018 refinances at $0.508 trillion and next year’s at $0.422 trillion. Refinance share is expected to thin from 29 percent this year to 24 percent in 2019.
Purchase-money production
is forecasted to increase from $1.197 trillion this year to $1.285 trillion in 2019. The prior projection was for volume to rise from $1.243 trillion to $1.338 trillion.
Based on Freddie’s government origination forecast, government share is expected to slightly widen from 23.6 percent last year to 23.8 percent
in 2018 then slip to 23.5 percent a year later.
