Mortgage originators reported a sharp increase in home-equity lending during the second quarter of 2016, although it wasn’t as robust a gain as the 34.2 percent surge in first-lien originations. Lenders generated an estimated $53.5 billion in home-equity business during the second quarter, an increase of 18.9 percent from the first three months of the year. It was the strongest quarterly production number for the HEL market since the financial crisis. Halfway through 2016, home-equity lending was up 15.9 percent from last year and tracking toward $200 billion in annual production. Although home-equity lending has strengthened over the past few years as house prices have recovered to pre-crisis levels, the outstanding supply of home-equity debt continues...[Includes three data tables]