A nice week-over-week gain in new refinance and jumbo business was offset by a decline in new adjustable-rate, purchase and government-insured business.
A 1 percent decline from the previous week left the U.S. Mortgage Market Index from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily at 151 in the week ended March 18.
Compared to the same week last year, the index — which is a reflection of average per-user rate locks by clients of OpenClose — has fallen by 30 percent.
The MMI, which includes activity during the seven days ended Thursday at midnight, was revised for a year earlier to include statistics from the same data provider.
Rate locks for adjustable-rate mortgages saw the biggest drop from a week earlier: 17 percent. ARM activity was down by nearly half from the week ended March 20, 2015. ARM share thinned to 6.9 percent from 8.2 percent the prior week and 9.5 percent a year prior.
At 68, the Purchase MMI was down 5 percent from the week ended March 11, 2016, and 15 percent lower than in the same week last year.
Next up was Federal Housing Administration-insured loan activity, declining 2 percent from the last report and 7 percent from the year-earlier report. FHA share slipped to 24.8 percent from 25.2 percent but was wider than 18.8 percent 12 months earlier.
Conventional rate locks edged down less than 1 percent and tumbled by more than a third from this week in 2015.
Rate locks for refinances were up 5 percent, though an 18 percent year-over-year decline was recorded. Refinance share widened to 72.2 percent from 68.1 percent a week earlier and 62.2 percent a year earlier. This week’s share consisted of a 45.6 percent rate-term share and a 26.6 percent cashout share.
The best-performing category in the latest report was jumbo, with rate locks for jumbo mortgages jumping 14 percent. But jumbo business sank 60 percent from 12 months prior — the worst year-over-year performance. Jumbo share fattened to 5.7 percent from 5.0 percent but thinned considerably from 10.0 percent a year ago.
Rates on jumbo mortgages were 2 basis points higher than conforming rates. Jumbo rates were no different than conforming rates in the last report and 7 BPS more in the year-earlier report.
Conforming 30-year fixed rates averaged 3.73 percent, up 5 BPS for the week but down 39 BPS from the same week last year.
Rates on 15-year mortgages were 74 BPS lower than 30-year rates. The spread widened from 72 BPS seven days previous but narrowed from 84 BPS 12 months previous.
Fixed interest rates on residential loans are likely to be around 7 BPS lower in the next Mortgage Market Index report based on a Mortgage Daily analysis of Treasury market activity.
