Federal Reserve Board releases April data
By MortgageDaily.com staff
5/10/2005

Fewer banks saw demand fall for mortgages, according to a government report -- which also indicates credit standards on home loans were largely unchanged.

The April 2005 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices by the Federal Reserve Board contrasted the small net easing of credit standards in January.

The survey, updated on a quarterly basis, addressed changes in the supply of, and demand for, bank loans to households during the previous three months, among other things, and reported the aggregate responses from fifty-four domestic banks.

The April survey showed a noticeably smaller net share of domestic banks reported weaker demand for residential mortgages and consumer loans than had done so in the January survey, the Fed said.

Even "though demand for residential mortgage loans reportedly weakened again over the past three months" -- with the percentage of banks reporting moderately to substantially weaker demand rising to about one-third from approximately 31% in January -- the Fed said that the net fraction of banks reporting weaker demand for purchase originations fell to 18 percent, which is lower than about 25 percent in the past two surveys.

Continuing on the trend since mid-2003, the federal policy agency reported that about 15 percent of the domestic respondents reported that their willingness to make consumer installment loans had increased. Meanwhile, the percentage of banks that responded they had somewhat eased standards on non-credit-card consumer loans increased to 12% from 5% in the January survey.

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