A bump in refinance activity and a jump in jumbo mortgage business pushed up overall new home lending activity during the latest seven-day period.
The U.S. Mortgage Market Index from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily came in at 170 for the week ended April 1, increasing 4 percent from the prior week.
The index, which is not seasonally adjusted, reflects average per-user rate locks by OpenClose clients for the seven days through Thursday at midnight.
Compared to the same week last year, the index has retreated 8 percent. The year-earlier figures were revised to reflect statistics from the same data provider.
Jumbo rate locks had the biggest bounce from the the previous report: 14 percent.
Jumbo business, however, slowed by more than half from the week ended April 3, 2015. In the latest report, jumbo rate locks accounted for 5.5 percent of all activity. Jumbo share widened from 5.0 percent in the last report and was slashed from 10.8 percent in the year-earlier report.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 5 basis points less than conforming rates. A week earlier, jumbo and conforming rates were the same, while jumbo rates were 7 BPS more than conforming rates a year ago.
Rate locks for refinances rose 8 percent from the week ended March 25 and were up nearly that amount from the same week in 2015. Refinance share widened to 71.5 percent from 68.9 percent a week earlier and 61.1 percent a year earlier. The most-recent share was comprised of a 45.1 percent rate-term share and a 26.3 percent cashout share.
Conventional business improved by nearly 7 percent from the last report but slid 15 percent from the same week last year.
Rate locks for purchase financing increased almost 2 percent from the previous report and were up over 5 percent from the year-previous report.
At 42, the FHA MMI was down 3 percent from one week earlier but 23 percent better than one year earlier. FHA share fell to 24.7 percent from 26.4 percent but was fatter than 18.5 percent a year ago.
A more than 3 percent week-over-week decline was recorded for adjustable-rate mortgage business, while the category was down nearly 15 percent on a year-over-year basis. ARM share was trimmed to 8.0 percent from 8.6 percent the prior week and a year prior.
Thirty-year conforming fixed rates
averaged 3.71 percent in the latest report, the same as the last report but 38 BPS better than the year-earlier report.
Fifteen-year rates were 73 BPS lower than 30-year rates. The spread thinned from 75 BPS seven days previous and 87 BPS a year previous.
Fixed mortgage rates are poised to come in approximately 5 BPS lower in next week’s MMI report based on a Mortgage Daily analysis of Treasury market activity.
