Kansas Mortgage Lenders Predict Strong 2007
The nation’s housing slowdown did not affect mortgage lending businesses in Wichita, Ks., last year, nor do local mortgage bankers expect it to have a major impact in 2007, the Wichita Eagle reports today.
Despite a downturn last year in sales and home values on the East and West coasts, Kansas mortgage broker and banker associations say their local business was relatively good - and anticipate business will remain good this year.
“We don’t see a lot of difference between the years (2006 and 2007),” said Dan Jones, V.P. of Capitol Federal Savings, one of the area’s biggest mortgage lenders.
That’s not to say 2006 was a banner year for home loans. The business in 2006 was nothing like it was a few years ago, when mortgage rates were at less than 6 percent and home loan refinancing outpaced conventional home purchases.
“We did a lot of home purchase loan deals, a lot of refinances that were at record paces. The volume is out there, it’s still steady, we’re just getting back to a normal pace,” said Tim Wooding of Executive Mortgage.
According to the latest statistics from the Wichita Area Association of Realtors, the number of existing homes sold in the first 11 months of 2006 was up 3.5 percent from the same period in 2005.
There was some contraction last year in the number of lenders in the state. From June 2005-June 2006, there were 25 fewer mortgage lenders doing business in Kansas as one home mortgage company after another decided to quit while they were ahead. Still, that wasn’t a huge drop, percentage-wise.
“But that’s out of 760-something in June 2005. Not a dramatic drop off,” Glendening said.
Experts think thata steady local economy and realistic home price increases have protected most of the Kansas housing market from the wild swings in other parts of the country.
Mortgage bankers said a combination of interest rates that are historically low and indications that the Federal Reserve Board won’t raise interest rates anytime soon, and as a result, that should make 2007 another good year for both mortgage refinancing and traditional home loans.
“We still have very low interest rates and money is very available for purchasing homes,” said Mitch Crouch, president of Equity Bank’s Mortgage Centre division. “For the year 2007, we’re really thinking the same thing.”
Wooding thinks the Kansas mortgage business may get a bump this year from people who took out adjustable rate mortgages seeing those rates creep up, and thinking about refinancing while conditions are good.
He also predicts that after a slow start to the calendar year, refinancing, first and second mortgages will all gain strength locally in the second quarter of 2007.