The Home Ownership Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in 1933 to refinance home mortgages. Before the Great Depression, mortgages were written for three to five year terms, although they did not fully amortize in that term and were routinely refinanced. After house prices dropped, many loans could not be refinanced because there was insufficient equity and of course many owners were unemployed or underemployed. The HOLC operated from 1933 to 1936 and refinanced more than a million mortgages, of which it subsequently foreclosed on about 200,000.