Though there was a slight dip in new purchase financing activity over the past week, an increase in refinance business was enough to more than offset the decline.
The U.S. Mortgage Market Index from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily, an indication of future mortgages originations, was 168 in for the week ended Sept. 23.
Compared to the previous week, the index — which is based on average per-user rate locks submitted by clients of OpenClose — increased by more than 1 percent.
No seasonal adjustments are made to the index, which accelerated by nearly 24 percent versus the same week last year.
A nearly 5 percent increase from the week ended Sept. 16 was recorded for refinance rate locks, the strongest week-over-week gain of any category. The Refinance MMI has risen by half compared to the downwardly revised level a year ago.
At 41.1 percent, refinance share was wider than 39.6 percent a week earlier and the
downwardly revised 34.0 percent a year earlier. The latest share consisted of a 24.6 percent rate-term share and a 16.5 percent cashout share.
Next up was the Government MMI, which was also up almost 5 percent. Government share widened to 30.9 percent from 29.8 percent in the last report. This week’s share was comprised of a 38.9 percent FHA share and a 7.8 percent VA share.
A less than 1 percent week-over-week decline was recorded for the Conventional MMI.
Rate locks for purchase financing were down by more than a percent from last week but increased by 10 percent from the upwardly revised level in the week ended Sept. 25, 2015.
At 10, the ARM MMI retreated 8 percent from a week earlier and was down 29 percent from a year earlier. ARM share was trimmed to 6.0 percent from 6.6 percent and cut from 10.5 percent the same week in 2015.
The Jumbo MMI tumbled 22 percent from one week prior to 14 and was down 21 percent from one year prior. Jumbo share fell to 8.2 percent from 10.6 percent in the last report and 12.8 percent in the same seven-day period last year.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 8 basis points higher than on conforming mortgages. The jumbo-conforming spread widened from 6 BPS one week previous and swung from a negative 17 BPS one year previous.
