by Wolf Richter, Wolf Street:

Mostly taxpayers, not the banks.

Mortgage balances ballooned because home prices ballooned in recent years, requiring more debt to finance the same home, and so mortgage balances in Q4 rose 2.2%, or by $253 billion, from the prior quarter, and by 9%, or by $1 trillion, from a year earlier, even as home sales volume plunged by 34% in Q4. Mortgage balances now reached $11.9 trillion.