August, 2020 Mortgage Market Share Report

September 21, 2020

The Monroe County purchase market not only continued its recovery from the pandemic induced lows of May and June. In fact, the market appears to be making up for lost time. This is evidenced by the fact that sales in August, as measured by recorded deeds, showed an 11% percent gain over August of 2019, widening the positive differential of the previous month. (graph page 7) Early returns thru September 10th (small sample size alert) show an even larger year over year improvement in excess of 40% – 83 deeds to 58 deeds.

Low interest rates continue to fuel refinancing. Most lenders are enjoying their largest origination volumes since 2013. With the Fed recently stating that it will keep interest rates at this level for several years, these volumes will continue into next year and hopefully beyond.

Our teams are adjusted to these higher volumes. In August, the Closing Team produced seller side closing statements two or more days prior to closing in 91% of our transactions. Even with limited access to the county offices, our title commitment turn time for Monroe County orders averaged 7.1 days. And we helped 603 people buy, sell or refinance their properties.

~ John Bethell