Mortgage lending under a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program fell in Hawaii during the recent fiscal year compared with the prior year, according to federal data.

Providers of VA mortgages lent $2.31 billion to 4,274 borrowers for home purchases and refinancing in the 2018 fiscal year, down from $2.85 billion to 5,494 borrowers the year before.

The Hawaii loan volume in the recent fiscal year, during which interest rates crept higher, was the weakest since 2014 when 2,930 loans were made for $1.42 billion.

Most of the decrease in the recent fiscal year was in refinancing, which represented 1,529 loans compared with 2,739 a year earlier. For home purchases, there was only a slight decrease to 2,745 loans from 2,755 loans in the same period.

The average loan size in Hawaii was $540,692 in the recent fiscal year, up from $518,792 in the prior year.

Hawaii’s decrease mirrored a national decline with VA lenders making 610,513 loans for $161 billion last fiscal year, down from 740,386 loans for $189 billion the year before.

Despite the decrease, VA loans now make up about 10 percent of the overall mortgage market, which is up from 2 percent a decade ago, according to the nation’s largest VA lender, Veterans United Home Loans.

Columbia, Mo.-based Veterans United, which offers loans to veterans with no down payment required, provided the VA loan data.

ON THE MOVE

Anthology Marketing Group has announced two new hires:

>> Swas Sharma is the new technical project manager for the company’s Digital Group. Prior to joining Anthology, Sharma was a business systems analyst for the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific.

>> Anna Piergallini is a new account executive for the company’s Public Relations Group. Piergallini previously was a director of marketing and sales with Kono’s Restaurants.