Originations climb to highest level since 2005

It probably won’t come as a surprise to those in the mortgage business that the fourth quarter of 2019 was a big one, considering that originations continued to rise throughout the year thanks to near-historic lows in mortgage rates.

But just how big the fourth quarter actually was may make the most ardent observers stand up and take notice.

To that point, a first look at the lending data for the fourth quarter from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that mortgage lending just experienced its biggest quarter in 14 years.

According to the New York Fed, there were more than $750 billion in new mortgages originated in the last three months of 2019, more than in any quarter since the fourth quarter of 2005.