If low interest rates prompted you to refinance your home last year, you were in good company.
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More than 34,000 Dallas County homeowners chose to refinance their mortgages in 1993. That’s almost twice the number that did in 1992, according to a report by American Title Co.’s Turtle Creek office.
Homeowners borrowed more than $3.55 billion to refinance their houses last year, compared with $2.2 billion in 1992, said Ted Darby, American Title’s marketing director.
“It was the biggest jump we’ve ever seen,” Darby said. In the fourth quarter alone, almost $1.2 billion in home loans were refinanced. The average loan amount was $103,238.
But Darby expects that home refinancings will trail off this year because of the slight increase in mortgage rates and because so many homeowners have already refinanced-some two and three times.
“We’re already beginning to see a slowdown,” he said. The fourth quarter set new high points for all types of real estate transactions, according to American Title’s survey. And 1993 will go down as the strongest year since the early 1980s.
More than $1.6 billion, or 27,205 homes, in pre-owned homes were financed during 1993-about a 10 percent increase from 1992. An additional $506 million in new home loans were recorded, which is 26 percent more than in 1992.