Decline in number of mortgages being recorded

The number of mortgages recorded each month, which had averaged nearly 1,300 from January 2012 through August 2013, suddenly dropped in the fall of 2013 to 964 in September, 809 in October, 725 in November, and 787 in December.  The first two months of 2014 have been even worse with only 570 mortgages recorded in January and 493 in February.  I'm not sure of the cause of this drop but it has to be affecting the housing market and the broader economy.

For historical context, here are some statistics for deeds, mortgages and total documents recorded at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds from 2002 through 2013:

	Deeds	Mortgages	Total Docs
2003	8,756	31,221	115,890
2003	8,977	41,800	146,956
2004	9,165	28,079	96,204
2005	8,930	25,402	87,866
2006	7,236	20,503	72,830
2007	6,767	15,999	66,192
2008	5,568	11,451	56,011
2009	5,557	14,743	65,838
2010	5,390	13,675	63,122
2011	5,158	11,818	59,563
2012	6,017	15,828	71,596
2013	6,718	13,272	67,001