Led by a decline in refinances, the holiday week saw a nearly one-third drop in mortgage activity — dragging the Mortech-Mortgage Daily Mortgage Market Index to its lowest level since launching late last year. Long-term conforming rates fell, but the story was a different one for jumbo rates.
The very first Mortgage Market Index was 197 for the week ended Dec. 17, 2009. Since then, it has fallen as low as 166 during the holiday week ended Dec. 30, 2009, and has climbed as high as 355 for the weeks ended June 30 and Aug. 25 of this year.
But Wednesday’s index sank to a new low: 140.
Seven days earlier it came in at 205.
Leading the weekly decline were refinances, which accounted for 46 percent of pricing inquiries pulled by Mortech Inc. client-originators at mortgage banker and mortgage broker shops. Refinance share was 51 percent a week earlier and 39 percent a year earlier.
The $197,992 average U.S. loan amount fell from the previous week’s $205,024. Hawaii’s $321,972 average loan amount beat out every other state, and South Dakota’s $136,331 was lowest.
The conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.944 percent, lower than last week’s 4.961 percent and last year’s 5.250 percent.
But the jumbo 30-year was higher, rising to 5.810 percent from 5.740 percent a week ago. The resulting jumbo-conforming spread widened to 87 basis points from 78 BPS.
