Mortgage Statistics: 2023

Demand was incredibly strong through 2020 and 2021 as record-low mortgage rates and high personal savings helped create a homebuying frenzy. But times have changed quickly. While the housing market isn’t crashing, rising rates and persistently high home prices have caused mortgage demand to significantly diminish over the past year.

Nonetheless, Americans owe $11.92 trillion on their mortgages, and mortgage debt accounts for 70.6% of consumer debt in the U.S. Even with interest rates hovering around 6.50%, mortgage demand hasn’t disappeared, and Americans across the country are trying to navigate today’s challenging housing market. Because of this, understanding how Americans deal with their mortgages is fundamental to comprehending the state of American finances.

With that in mind, LendingTree analyzed various data sources to create a mortgage statistics overview. Read on to learn more about how much mortgage debt Americans owe — and how they’re using and managing that debt.

Latest mortgage statistics in 2023

• Americans owe $11.92 trillion on 83.4 million mortgages. That comes to an average of $142,927 per person with a mortgage on their credit report. Mortgages represent 70.6% of consumer debt in the U.S. (See how this has changed over time)
• Additionally, Americans owe $336 billion on 13.1 million home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). That equates to an average of $25,610 per account. Outstanding HELOC debt represents 2.0% of U.S. consumer debt.
• In 2022, the average weekly interest rate for a fixed, 30-year mortgage was 5.34%. The range was from a low of 3.22% the week of Jan. 6, 2022, to a high of 7.08% the week of Nov. 10, 2022. (See rates from 1972 through 2022)
• Americans originated $2.75 trillion in new mortgage debt in 2022. 80.0% of that was issued to super-prime borrowers with credit scores of at least 720, while 2.8% was issued to subprime borrowers with scores below 620. (See historical origination data)
• The average size of a home purchase mortgage obtained through the LendingTree platform in 2022 was $333,342. Average loan sizes were highest in the District of Columbia ($561,114), Washington state ($537,741) and California ($520,110). They were lowest in Michigan ($206,581), Indiana ($218,852) and Ohio ($223,264). (See a full list of states and home prices over time)
• 4.6% of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans are seriously delinquent. That means they’re 90 days or more past due. 2.5% of Veterans Affairs (VA) loans are seriously delinquent, versus 0.8% of conventional mortgages. Combined, 1.2% of all mortgage accounts are seriously delinquent.
• There were 96,740 new foreclosures in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2022. 2.9% of mortgage accounts were at least 30 days past due and 1.2% were at least 90 days past due in November 2022. Both were down about a full percentage point from November 2021. (See how this compares to the past)
• 1.9% of mortgages — or 1.1 million residential properties — are “underwater.” That means that the outstanding mortgage balance is greater than the estimated sale price of the home.
• At the end of the third quarter of 2022, American households held 70.4% of their property value, or $29.50 trillion, in real estate equity. That’s 78.4% more than the $16.54 trillion held in the third quarter of 2017. Due to rising home prices, homeowners gained an average of about $34,300 in increased equity over the past year.

The wider view

Outstanding mortgages

The massive increase in outstanding mortgage debt has been driven by two things: more people with active mortgages and mortgages that are (generally) larger. Record-low mortgage interest rates allowed many buyers to increase their purchase prices — or take advantage of a cash-out refinance — while maintaining similar monthly payments to what was available in the recent past with smaller loan sizes.

Outstanding mortgages

Source: LendingTree analysis of Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Note: * People with joint accounts are counted twice if a mortgage account appears on their credit report.

Outstanding HELOCs

Source: LendingTree analysis of Federal Reserve Bank of New York data. Note: * People with joint accounts are counted twice if a HELOC account appears on their credit report.

Mortgage rates

Over the past 50 years, rates dropped below 5% for the first time in 2009 after the Federal Reserve aggressively lowered target rates to combat the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. Rates dipped below 4% for the first time in late 2011 and below 3% for the first time in 2020.

Average mortgage rates reached their lowest level (2.65%) during the first week of 2021. The lowest weekly rate in the 30 years between 1972 and 2001 — 6.45% — occurred in November 2001.

Here’s a look at historic mortgage rates dating to 1972:

Historic interest rates for 30-year conventional mortgages

Source: LendingTree analysis of Federal Reserve of St. Louis data.

Mortgage originations

Mortgage originations dropped off dramatically as rates rose from their 2021 historic lows. In fact, $2.75 trillion in mortgages were originated in 2022, compared with $4.51 trillion in 2021.

At $4.51 trillion, 2021 saw the largest annual origination volume of the last 20 years. Historically low rates that year meant that borrowers could take out bigger loans for similar monthly payments, and it also drew many people to refinance their existing mortgages.

Origination volume was also elevated in the years leading up to the subprime mortgage financial crisis of 2007 to 2010, with subprime borrowers with credit scores below 620 taking up an unusually large share of the new debt. Subprime borrowing as a share of origination volume peaked in 2006 at 13.6%, while super-prime borrowers with scores of at least 720 held their smallest share that year (53.5%). In 2020 and 2021, subprime borrowers only comprised around 2% of the volume, while super-prime borrowers comprised around 84%.

Average mortgage size for home purchases

The amount borrowed for home purchases varies greatly by location — and local home purchase prices.

How much people borrowed for home purchases via the LendingTree platform in 2022

Source: Anonymized LendingTree data.

Folding in down payments, the average purchase price for a home in the U.S. was dramatically higher than the $333,342 average mortgage size on our platform in 2022. Average home prices reached their historic high nationally in the third quarter of 2022 at $547,800, before dropping to $535,800 in the fourth quarter.

Driven in part by lower mortgage rates, home prices rose dramatically following the start of the pandemic, when the national average home purchase price was $374,500. That represents an increase of $173,300, or 46.3%, in the nine quarters (just over two years) before the peak in the third quarter of 2022.

Delinquencies and foreclosures

The percentage of mortgage debt that is seriously delinquent — meaning 90 days or more past due — is at a historic low. However, it’s important to remember that this represents the percentage of outstanding debt, not the number of individual accounts.

As discussed, 2021 saw a huge surge in the total volume of dollars originated as mortgage debt, and a historically high proportion of that went to super-prime borrowers, which should minimize the amount of debt that becomes delinquent or goes into foreclosure.

However, there’s a point of concern for the future. The amount of mortgage debt that became 30 days overdue popped up in the second and third quarters of 2022. Most of these borrowers will catch up shortly, but every delinquency begins with one missed payment.

Number of new foreclosures

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax panel.

Sources

• Anonymized LendingTree customer data
• Federal Reserve
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax panel
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
• CoreLogic