Origination volume in the Veterans Affairs (VA) universe amounted to $388 billion in 2021, an analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data by Polygon Research application HMDAVision found.
This marks a notable dip in originations from 2020, a record-breaking year in which VA lenders pumped out approximately $427 billion in VA loans.
The top 10 VA lenders by volume in 2021:
- Freedom Mortgage Corp.
- Rocket Mortgage
- Mortgage Research Center, LLC (DBA Veterans United)
- PennyMac Loan Servicers
- United Wholesale Mortgage
- Navy Federal Credit Union
- LoanDepot
- Caliber Home Loans
- USAA Federal Savings Banks
- Homepoint
Freedom Mortgage Corporation continued to lead the pack, originating $43 billion in VA loans last year. Still, its VA originations fell by 23.17% from the prior year.
Rocket Mortgage came in second by volume, originating $29.72 billion, a 5.40% dip year-over-year, while Missouri-based Mortgage Research Center, LLC (doing business as Veterans United) came in third place, increasing originations by 18% year-over-year to $29.70 billion in 2021.
PennyMac Loan Services took fourth place, originating $17.5 billion in VA loans, a 44.83% increase and Pontiac-based United Wholesale Mortgage, not too far behind, originated $15.1 billion, a decline of 26% from 2020.
Virginia-based Navy Federal Credit Union nabbed fifth place, originating $12.75 billion, up 32.12% from 2020 and LoanDepot came in a close sixth place, increasing their origination volume by 7.22% year-over-year to $12.1 billion.
Caliber Home Loans came in seventh place, originating $10.6 billion in 2021, an increase of 9.10% year-over-year, credit union USAA Federal Savings Bank originated $7.8 billion, and wholesale lender HomePoint originated $7.2 billion, a 48.02% increase from 2020 origination levels.
HMDA data shows that the average VA loan size in 2021 was $314,949 and the average interest rate for VA loans was 2.62%. For comparison’s sake, HMDA data revealed that the average FHA loan size in 2021 was $251,371, while the average interest rate was 3.03%.
But some lenders charged higher interest rates than the average on VA loans last year.
Fairway Independent Mortgage, which originated $5.6 billion in VA loans in 2021, had an average interest rate of 2.91% on VA loans, the data shows. USAA Federal Savings Bank also had an elevated interest rate of 2.86%, according to HMDA filings.
CrossCountry Mortgage and Movement Mortgage both had an average interest rate of 2.85% on VA loans.
HMDA data also shows that 54.5% of applicants for VA loans were white in 2021 and only 28.7% of applicants were minority borrowers. The remaining 16.7% of applicants opted out of disclosing their ethnicity.
In February, HousingWire published an analysis of the 2022 outlook for first-time VA homebuyers.
