Although overall monthly refinance activity slowed, refinances processed for the Home Affordable Refinance Program and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. turned higher.
February saw 463,804 refinance transactions completed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to the Refinance Report February 2013 from their regulator — the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Fannie and Freddie refinances fell from January, when 469,953 conventional agency loans were refinanced.
But refinance activity was elevated from February 2012. That month, 335,031 refinances closed.
Fannie was responsible for 294,303 of February’s refinances, down from the previous month’s 305,396.
Over at Freddie, however, refinance transactions increased to 169,501 from 164,557.
Refinances processed for HARP totaled 97,738 during the most recent month, a few more than the 97,589 HARP transactions processed in January.
HARP business has more than doubled from a year earlier, when just 48,611 loans were processed.
Since HARP went live in April 2009, there have been 2,360,347 refinances processed through the program.
Of February’s HARP activity, 55,428 had loan-to-value ratios that were higher than 80 percent, while 21,156 had LTVs higher than 105 percent and an additional 21,154 refinances had LTVs in excess of 125 percent.
