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The Finance Base
The Money Desk · Blog
Re:

Did the Share of Home Loans Under $100,000 Fall From Over 12% to Under 3%?

The claimed national drop in home loans under $100,000 is not verified by the available figures. Related studies show financing barriers, but measure different loans, places and years.
From TheFinanceBase Team4 min to read
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The claimed drop—from over 12% in 2013–14 to under 3% in 2025–26—cannot be verified from the available evidence. The figures need an original source and a consistent definition of which loans and years they count. Separate studies do show barriers to financing lower-cost homes and cite lender economics as one possible obstacle, but they do not establish this national trend or explain what caused it.

What is—and is not—established about the claimed decline

The headline describes a time-series result: the share of home loans below $100,000 supposedly fell between 2013–14 and 2025–26. To assess it, a reader needs the source table or calculation, the geography, the definition of “home loans,” the denominator used to calculate the share, and whether the years are calendar or fiscal years. Those details are not established by the sources available here, so the two percentages should not be presented as a confirmed national statistic.

Definitions matter. “Under $100,000” excludes a loan of exactly $100,000, while “$100,000 and below” includes it. And a share of loan originations is not the same measure as a share of applications, home sales, or homes in a market’s housing stock. A comparison can appear to show a trend while actually comparing different populations or denominators.

What the available figures actually measure

These findings give context on small loans and lower-cost homes, but they are not interchangeable points in a single national series.

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Finding What it measures Why it does not verify the headline
13.1% of U.S. home sales in 2020 were below $100,000 Home sale prices, reported by the Urban Institute in its 2022 brief, “Improving the Availability of Small Mortgage Loans.” It is the share of sales below a price threshold, not the share of home loans below a loan-balance threshold.
About one-third of homes priced below $100,000 were purchased with a mortgage in 2020, compared with more than 80% of homes priced at least $100,000 Mortgage use by home sale-price group, in the same Urban Institute brief. It describes financing patterns in 2020, not the share of all loans below $100,000 over time.
2.3% in 2014 The national share of mortgages below $50,000, reported by Urban Institute authors Ellen Seidman and Bing Bai in their 2016 article, “Where have all the small loans gone?” The threshold is $50,000, not $100,000; it cannot establish the headline’s 2013–14 starting point.
31% in 2013, falling to around 4% in 2020 The share of FHA loans below $100,000 in Forsyth County, North Carolina, in a New America case study covering 2007–2020 data. This is local, FHA-specific evidence, not a national share across all home loans.

Why a low-priced home does not necessarily mean a small loan

Sale price and mortgage balance are related but not identical. A buyer’s down payment reduces the amount borrowed, so a home sold for more than $100,000 can still have a loan below that threshold. Conversely, the sale price alone does not establish that a buyer borrowed less than $100,000. New America’s methodology discussion makes this distinction when defining small-dollar mortgage applications.

That is why statistics about low-cost home sales cannot substitute for statistics about small loan balances. To calculate the headline’s claimed share, the underlying data would need to count loans by amount and divide by a clearly specified total—such as all qualifying originations in a stated geography and year.

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Why small-dollar mortgages can be difficult to obtain

Lender costs may not shrink with the loan

Urban Institute authors Seidman and Bai noted that some mortgage origination costs are fixed. If a smaller balance produces less revenue while requiring similar processing and servicing work, a lender may find that loan less attractive. They also discussed smaller financing spreads and servicing income as possible economic factors. This is an explanation of a potential barrier, not proof that these factors caused the headline’s claimed decline.

Property condition can affect approval

The Urban Institute’s 2022 brief found that applications for loans under $100,000 faced a much higher likelihood of denial, and that property condition played a larger role in denials than it did for larger loans. A low-priced property may need repairs or otherwise fail to meet a lender’s requirements; the cited finding identifies property condition as a factor, but does not show that it explains every denial or any particular national time-series change.

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Lower-cost homes are less often bought with mortgages

In the Urban Institute’s account of 2020 sales, about one-third of homes priced below $100,000 were purchased with a mortgage, versus more than 80% of homes priced at least $100,000. This gap shows that low sale prices do not automatically translate into small mortgage originations: many lower-priced homes in that data were bought without a mortgage. It does not, on its own, identify why those purchases were made without financing.

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What would make the 2013–14 to 2025–26 comparison reliable

A defensible comparison should use the same data source and method at both endpoints. Before treating the two percentages as a national trend, check that the source specifies:

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  • CONFIDENTLY AND EASILY SOLVE: Clients' financial questions whether they're buyers, sellers, investors or renters. Increase your perceived professionalism as a new agent, experienced broker or seasoned loan officer. Close more home sales and impress your clients with fast, accurate answers to all their real estate finance questions from PITI Payments to IRR, NPV and Cashflows
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  • Geography: the same country or market in each period.
  • Loan population: all originations, purchase loans, applications, or a defined program such as FHA—not a mix.
  • Threshold: consistently “under $100,000” or “$100,000 and below.”
  • Denominator: the total number of loans, applications, sales, or another clearly named group.
  • Time period: whether 2013–14 and 2025–26 refer to calendar years, fiscal years, or another interval.
  • Loan amount versus sale price: the measure must be the loan balance if the claim is about loans.

The New America Forsyth County figures and Urban Institute national findings help describe related issues, but their different geographies, loan populations, thresholds, and measures mean they cannot fill in missing endpoints for the claimed series.

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