Mortgage lending in Las Vegas rises for 3rd straight year, report notes

Lenders doled out more mortgages to Las Vegas homebuyers for the third consecutive year in 2016, bucking a nationwide dip last year, a new report shows.

A total of 36,130 home-purchase loans were issued in the Las Vegas area in 2016, up 8.5 percent from 2015, according to figures from housing tracker Attom Data Solutions.

Nationally, almost 2.8 million purchase loans were issued last year, down 1.5 percent.

Despite the uptick locally, lenders still aren’t spreading as much money around as they were during the bubble years last decade. In 2006 alone, 80,931 purchase loans were issued in the Las Vegas area, according to Attom.

But mortgage lenders are more active now than they were a few years ago, as purchase loans hit bottom here in 2013 at 24,831 and have climbed annually since.

Lenders also issued 31,296 refinance loans in Las Vegas last year, up 12 percent from 2015, while some 3.4 million refis were issued nationally, up 4 percent, Attom found.