RateZip Mortgage Demand Index
What mortgage borrowers are actually asking for.
In June 2026, reverse mortgages accounted for 86%of the home-equity-tapping inquiries in RateZip's lead flow (refinance + reverse + HELOC), up from 23% in June 2025. Rate-and-term and cash-out refinance demand has collapsed — 84 refinance inquiries in June 2026 against 2,966 a year earlier — while reverse-mortgage inquiries roughly doubled (977 → 1,936). With mortgage rates where they are, few homeowners benefit from refinancing a low-rate first lien; homeowners who need their equity are turning to reverse mortgages and HELOCs instead, which leave the existing first mortgage untouched.
Reverse share of equity demand
86%
June 2026 · was 23% in June 2025
Reverse inquiries
1,936
June 2026 · 977 a year earlier
Refinance inquiries
84
June 2026 · 2,966 a year earlier
Median reverse request
$88K
median requested amount, latest month reported
The rotation from refinance to reverse
Why demand rotated
Most US homeowners hold first mortgages far below today's rates, so a cash-out refinance means repricing the whole balance upward — the math rarely works. The equity is still there and still needed, so demand moved to instruments that tap it without touching the first lien: HELOCs for working-age owners, reverse mortgages for owners 62 and up. Total equity-tapping inquiry volume in RateZip's flow held roughly steady over the past year; what changed is which product borrowers ask for.
Top states, all mortgage inquiries
| State | Inquiries | Share |
|---|---|---|
| TX | 1,066 | 15.4% |
| FL | 852 | 12.3% |
| CA | 510 | 7.4% |
| PA | 397 | 5.7% |
| GA | 331 | 4.8% |
| MI | 310 | 4.5% |
| IL | 289 | 4.2% |
| NC | 260 | 3.8% |
| NJ | 236 | 3.4% |
| AL | 235 | 3.4% |
Top states, reverse mortgage
| State | Inquiries | Share |
|---|---|---|
| TX | 946 | 16.8% |
| FL | 701 | 12.4% |
| CA | 381 | 6.8% |
| PA | 316 | 5.6% |
| MI | 252 | 4.5% |
| GA | 247 | 4.4% |
| NC | 237 | 4.2% |
| IL | 216 | 3.8% |
| SC | 205 | 3.6% |
| NJ | 184 | 3.3% |
Trailing three data months. Share is of suppressed-cell-filtered state totals for the period.
About these numbers
The index counts consumer mortgage inquiries submitted through RateZip's owned-and-operated sites and marketing, from January 2019 — 1,349,019 inquiries represented in total. It measures demand in RateZip's flow, not total US market volume: absolute levels reflect our reach in a given period, so the meaningful signals are mix and trend, not raw scale. Aggregates only are published; any month-product-state cell with fewer than 20 inquiries is suppressed, and no record-level data leaves our systems. Reverse-mortgage inquiries are separable from refinance from January 2023 — before that, reverse volume is included within refinance, so cross-2023 comparisons should use refinance and reverse combined. Full provenance on the methodology page.
Citing these figures? Quote the number with its month and attribute to "RateZip Mortgage Demand Index" with a link to this page.