Conventional agency refinance production was lower for the fourth consecutive month. The slowdown isn’t hitting government-supported refinances quite as hard.
Loan originators completed 302,373 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinances in August, slowing from a revised 360,095 the previous month.
The statistics were reported by Fannie’s and Freddie’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in its Refinance Report August 2013.
Refinance volume has fallen each month since April, when a revised 463,586 government-sponsored enterprise transactions were completed.
Refinances of government-sponsored enterprise loans amounted to a revised 420,014 transactions in August 2012.
From Jan. 1 through Aug. 31, GSE refinance volume totaled 3,340,221.
Fannie’s share of August activity was 201,986, down from the prior month’s revised 232,149. Freddie’s volume fell to 100,387 from 127,946.
GSE refinances closed through the Home Affordable Refinance Program represented 68,340 of the latest monthly activity, fewer than the revised 79,235 refinances closed in July and the revised 110,133 transactions in August 2012.
It was only the second consecutive month HARP volume was lower.
FHFA reported that 2,886,856 HARP refinances have been closed since the launch of the program in April 2009.
August 2013 HARP production included 42,871 refinances with loan-to-value ratios higher than 80 percent and up to 105 percent. Another 14,097 transactions had LTV ratios in excess of 105 percent and up to 125 percent, and 11,372 had LTV ratios above 125 percent.
