![Arvest Bank again led the state with $930 million in loans originating in Arkansas, a 15% increase from 2023. [Google Maps]](https://arkansasbusiness.wppcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Screenshot_2025-01-21_at_2.10.11_PM_opt-920x615.jpg)
Arvest Bank crept back toward the $1 billion mark for loans originating in Arkansas in 2024 after tough conditions caused a steep decline in 2023.
Arvest Bank was again the clear leader as the state’s biggest lender with more than $930 million in Arkansas loans. That is a 15% increase from nearly $810 million in 2023; in 2022, Arvest Bank had more than $1 billion in loans that originated in Arkansas.
The bank’s loan value was more than double that of runner-up Centennial Bank, which had $368.7 million, a 6% increase from 2023. FirstTrust Home Loans was third with $329.7 million, a 15.6% increase from the previous year.
High home prices coupled with interest rates that remained in the 7% neighborhood created challenges for lenders.
“So it was a challenging year; it was challenging for customers, in many ways, as rates stayed higher than many of the experts expected,” said Chris Evans, president and CEO of Arvest Bank’s mortgage division. “We ended the year near 7% mortgage rates, which is not what I know a lot of borrowers want to see.”
Of the 12 mortgage lenders that have shared information with Arkansas Business for the past two years, eight of them saw an increase in overall value of mortgages that originated in Arkansas. Five of those institutions saw gains of 10% or more.
Four lenders saw a drop in overall value.
“For FirstTrust as a whole, it was a huge bounce-back year,” said FirstTrust owner Glenn Strong. “We had a year of growth. It was one of our best years that we’d had. For us, it was a very good year, [but] the industry as a whole, I feel like there was just a tremendous amount of volatility.”
Evans said Arvest helped 7,335 families buy a home in 2024, up from 6,981 in 2023.

“Affordability is a real challenge in our markets; in fact, 2024 was one of the worst purchase markets since the mid-1990s,” Evans said. “We saw that not only were housing prices up and interest rates up, but we saw very large increases in property taxes and insurance rates. All that together puts a lot of pressure on both existing homeowners as well as folks who were trying to buy a new home.”
Historically, a 7% mortgage rate is quite good, Strong said, but some potential borrowers may have become spoiled by the ultra-low rates that were common before the COVID-19 pandemic.
After the struggles of 2023, FirstTrust hunkered down to plan for 2024 and then had a terrible January.
“We had, honestly, a horrible month, and everybody’s like, ‘Uh, oh,’” Strong said. “There was a lot of pent-up interest because of how poor 2023 was, so we just kind of went out and tried to reach the goals of the customers, and it turned out way better than I could have ever imagined.”
Neither Evans nor Strong foresees a significant drop in interest rates in 2025, even with a new administration in Washington, D.C.
“There’s some research I’ve read that most buyers really don’t want to move until rates are in the 5½% range,” Evans said. “I would say they should … go ahead and do it based on the rates that exist now, and they can always refinance later, whenever the rates are more favorable to them.
“Anything’s possible, but I would say [lower rates] are highly unlikely. If the market believed that inflation is coming down in the long term, that may help.”
Strong said he doesn’t expect to see a lot of regulatory relief in the mortgage industry, as many others hope, from the new administration. He said that on the one hand, he doesn’t expect FirstTrust to beat its 2024 numbers, but he also doesn’t discount his team’s talents.
FirstTrust originated approximately $600 million in loans throughout its four-state footprint.
“I think it’s going to be hard to repeat as good as we did, because I’m not expecting any huge interest rate cuts, but the rear-view is smaller than the windshield,” Strong said. “I really feel like we’re going to have an equal or a little better year.
“My goals would be for us to continue on this uptick that we are on for FirstTrust. For the overall industry, it is to learn that we are in a new normal.”