Nationally, credit unions originated $73.3 billion in first mortgages in the three months ending Sept. 30, down 4% from the $81.6 billion produced in 2020's third quarter, which was the peak of the mortgage boom for credit unions. For other lenders, the peak was in the fourth quarter.

The drop compared with a weak 2.4% gain from 2020's second quarter to this year's second quarter.

The credit union experience was a taste of what the Mortgage Bankers Association has tracked this year. Among all lenders, third-quarter originations were $954 billion, down 17.3% from a year earlier. For this year, the MBA said it expects originations will fall 4.3% to $3.93 trillion. For 2022, the MBA predicted originations will plummet 34% to $2.61 trillion as the refinance market shrinks by more than half and the purchase market grows moderately.

The MBA said it expects refinances to continue falling as interest rates for 30-year mortgages rise steadily to 4% by the end of 2022.

Credit unions accounted for 8.2% of originations in the third quarter based on the MBA's latest estimates of total originations. The share is similar to before the pandemic and ensuing surge in mortgage originations. During the boom, credit unions set records, but did not quite keep up with the feverish growth of other lenders, and their share fell to a low of 5.9% in 2020's fourth quarter.

The MBA estimated first-mortgage balances were $11.39 trillion as of Sept. 30 among all U.S. lenders, up 5.6% from  a year earlier. At credit unions, first-mortgage balances grew 8.1% to $557.8 billion as of Sept. 30, accounting for 4.9% of all mortgages, a share that has changed little in the past few years.

Weighting the third-quarter originations of each credit union by the number of branches in each Census division showed:

• New England: Originations were $3.6 billion in the three months ending Sept. 30, down 15.6% from a year earlier and down 11.6% from the previous quarter.
• Middle Atlantic: $6.7 billion, up 5.7% from a year earlier, and down 5.7% from the previous quarter.
• East North Central: $11.4 billion, down 15% from a year earlier and down 9.4% from the previous quarter.
• West North Central: $5.3 billion, down 6.7% from a year earlier and down 3.9% from the previous quarter.
• South Atlantic: $15 billion, up 5.3% from a year earlier and 2.7% from the previous quarter.
• East South Central: $2.6 billion, down 12.4% from a year earlier and down 1.7% from the previous quarter.
• West South Central: $6.3 billion, up 0.9% from a year earlier and down 4.6% from the previous quarter.
• Mountain: $8.8 billion, down 11.3% from a year earlier and down 4.5% from the previous quarter.
• Pacific: $17.9 billion, down 1.2% from a year earlier and down 1.5% from the previous quarter.