A doubling of new jumbo business and a solid gain in purchases more than offset weakness in other categories of weekly mortgage activity.
The U.S. Mortgage Market Index from OpenClose and Mortgage Daily came in at 130 for the week that ended on Oct. 30.
Compared to the previous report, the index — a measure of average per-user rate locks by clients of OpenClose — was up 15 percent.
The index, however, has retreated by 27 percent from the same week in 2014. The year-earlier figures were revised to reflect numbers from the same data provider.
Rate locks for jumbo mortgages soared 101 percent from the week ended Oct. 23, 2015. But the category fell nine percent from one year prior. Jumbo share fattened to 13.3 percent from 7.6 percent a week earlier and 10.7 percent a year earlier.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 15 basis points less than on conforming loans, the same spread as in the previous week. But the jumbo-conforming spread swung from a positive four BPS one year prior.
Next up were rate locks for conventional mortgages, which climbed 18 percent from the last report but were off by a third from the week ended Oct. 31, 2014.
After that was purchase financing, which jumped 17 percent on a week-over-week basis but slumped 22 percent on a year-over-year basis.
Rate locks for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration moved up six percent from seven days prior and were 11 percent stronger than a year ago. FHA share thinned to 20.8 percent from 22.6 percent but was far wider than 13.8 percent this week last year.
A less than one percent decline from the week-earlier report was recorded for refinance rate locks. Compared to the year-earlier report, refinance business was down 18 percent.
Refinances represented 63.1 percent of the latest activity. Refinance share fell from 72.7 percent seven days prior but increased from 56.2 percent 12 months prior. This week’s refinance share consisted of a 42.7 percent rate-term share and a 20.4 percent cashout share.
The worst-performing category of the week was adjustable-rate mortgages, with ARM activity slowing 12 percent. Rate locks for ARMs subsided 35 percent from this week a year ago. ARM share was slashed to 9.6 percent from 12.6 percent in the last report and 10.9 percent in the year-prior report.
Thirty-year fixed rates averaged 3.76 percent, three BPS less than one week prior. Compared to the same week last year, 30-year rates have tumbled 59 BPS.
The difference between 15- and 30-year rates fell to 78 BPS from 81 BPS and was also down from 91 BPS twelve months ago.
Fixed mortgage rates could be around six BPS worse in the next Mortgage Market Index report based on an analysis of Treasury market activity by Mortgage Daily.
