(Bloomberg) -- Nearly $4.4 trillion of home mortgages are set to be originated this year in the U.S., according to data provider Black Knight Inc.
That record amount is about $300 billion more than the most optimistic forecast among estimates from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The Federal Reserve has helped fuel a housing rally by keeping interest rates low and buying mortgage bonds to stimulate the economy.The previous originations record was set in 2003, when the Fed cut interest rates and spurred a boom in refinancings that led to $3.8 trillion of new mortgages that year.
Read more: Mortgage Industry Roars to Record Year, Courtesy of the Fed
Roughly 6.4 million homeowners have refinanced their mortgages this year through September, a figure that Black Knight experts to top 9 million by year's end.
Profit margins are at record levels in the mortgage industry, prompting at least nine companies to either go public this year or plan to do so in the coming months.
Next year could be even better for the industry, with more than $4.5 trillion of projected originations, according to a team of mortgage researchers at Bank of America Corp. led by Satish Mansukhani.
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