Purchase transactions pushed new mortgage activity higher this week. The improvement came even as interest rates and refinance share took a turn for the worse.
It was an up week for the Mortech-Mortgage Daily Mortgage Market Index, which crept to 213 for the week ended Wednesday from 209 seven days prior. The index reflects pricing inquiries by loan originators at mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers.
But the Mortgage Market Index was lower than the 255 during the same week last year.
Driving the week-over-week increase was a 6 percent rise in purchase activity, though purchases were down 16 percent from the same seven-day period during 2010.
Refinances, however, fell 2 percent from last week’s report and were 17 percent worse than a year earlier.
Total refinance share eased to 49 percent from last week’s 51 percent and was just below the 50 percent level a year ago. Rate-term transactions had a share of 34 percent this week, and the cashout refinance share was 15 percent.
The overall increase in weekly activity also overcame a deterioration in mortgage rates.
The conforming 30-year rose to 4.924 percent from last week’s 4.828 percent, and the jumbo 30-year climbed 10 BPS to 5.650 percent. The resulting jumbo-conforming spread widened a notch to 73 BPS from the prior week’s 72 BPS.
