By Jonnelle Marte | Bloomberg
US consumers had a tougher time accessing credit this year, with applications for auto loans and mortgage refinancing being turned down at the highest rates in more than a decade.
Despite largely stable demand, applications for various forms of credit were increasingly rejected in 2024, according to a survey released Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Americans also became more pessimistic about their ability to tap credit in the future.
“Reported rejection rates for credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, credit card limit extension applications and mortgage loan refinance applications all rose in 2024,” the New York Fed said in a statement.
The findings showed reported rejection rates rose to 21% this year, from 20.1% in 2023. That’s well above the 17.6% seen before the pandemic. Borrowers with credit scores under 680 were especially likely to face rejection rates that were above pre-pandemic levels. The figures are from the New York Fed’s survey of consumer expectations credit access survey, which is conducted every four months and was most recently fielded in October.
The average rejection rate for mortgage applications increased by 8.6 percentage points to 20.7% in 2024, more than double the 2019 rate. For mortgage refinances, the average rejection rate rose to a series high of 25.6%. And for auto loans, the rate rose to 11.4%, the highest since the start of the series in 2013.
Borrowers don’t expect it will become easier to obtain credit in the near term and fewer people are planning to apply for loans over the next year, the study showed. The share of people who said they are likely to apply for at least one type of credit in the next year dropped to 23.1% in 2024, down from 25.9% in 2023.
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