Tampa Bay residential mortgage activity was strong in the first quarter
Refinanced loans accounted for 60.2% of all mortgages in the Tampa Bay metro area in the first quarter. Enlarge Refinanced loans accounted for 60.2% of all mortgages in the Tampa Bay metro area in the first quarter.

By Chris Erickson
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jun 3, 2021

With 3.77 million mortgages secured by residential properties, home mortgage activity reached the highest level in 14 years in the first quarter of 2021, according to ATTOM Data Solutions. This represents an increase of 3% from the fourth quarter of 2020 and an increase of 71% from the first quarter of 2020. <>This increase in mortgages, which totaled $1.16 trillion, was fueled heavily by refinanced mortgages as interest rates remain around 3%. Refinanced loans accounted for 68% of all home loans, an increase from 62% in the fourth quarter and 54% in the first quarter of 2020.

One area that saw a decrease was in home equity lines of credit. These types of loans were down 27% from the fourth quarter and 34.2% from the first quarter of 2020.

Locally, refinanced loans accounted for 60.2% of all mortgages in the Tampa Bay metro area in the first quarter. This put Tampa Bay among the five large metros (1 million or more people) with the lowest percentage of refinanced loans. Tampa Bay also ranked as one of the top five in percentage of mortgages that were purchase loans (34.9%), the report shows.

The other two local metro areas also bucked the national trend regarding loan types. Lakeland-Winter Haven saw 45% of mortgages for purchases and 51% for refinanced loans, while North Port-Sarasota was 41% purchase, 54% refinance. However, both saw a year-over-year increase in refinances of 102% and 140%, respectively.

Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater refinances increased 127% from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021.

Combined, the Tampa Bay area saw 62,827 mortgages secured by residential properties, an 81% increase over the first quarter of 2020.