This Week in Real Estate 16 November 2011: Demand for Real Estate Loans Growing

Econintersect:  The Federal Reserves October 2011 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices showed that bank lending policies for residential real estate were not getting any tighter (or weaker), but demand for loans was increasing.  The graph below was taken from this report.

According to this Federal Reserve report:

Reports of strengthened demand for mortgage loans to purchase homes outnumbered reports of weaker demand for the first time since early 2010, perhaps reflecting refinancing activity.5 The number of banks reporting weaker demand for home equity lines of credit increased in the third quarter, particularly among smaller banks.

Few banks reported changes in standards on prime or nontraditional closed-end residential real estate loans, in line with the past several surveys. Similarly, very few banks reported any change in standards for home equity lines of credit, also in line with recent surveys.

Normally Econintersect reports on the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Mortgage Applications Survey.  About two years ago, the MBA stopped reporting publically their raw data.  At that point, Econintersect Publisher Steven Hansen stopped reporting on Seeking Alpha the weekly results of this survey.  Through graphs produced by Bloomberg and Calculated Risk who must have had continued access the to data, Econintersect was able to publish the information from the MBA press release using the available graphs to provide context.  Something happened last week and access to the data has been further restricted.  No graphs this week.

As the usefullness of this data is marginal (the correlation between home sales and mortgages is growing murky in the New Normal), if Econintersect cannot have a graph or access to raw data – this economic data point is without context.  Until data or graphical analysis reappears, Econintersect can no longer report on the MBA.

source: Federal Reserve