For the third month in a row, the nation’s mortgage bankers have reduced the volume of refinance production they expect to generate this year.
Overall loan originations, including purchase financing
and refinancing, are predicted to reach $344 billion during the first-three months of this year.
Home lending is then expected to climb to $430 billion in the second quarter and ascend further to $437 billion during the following three months.
Those projections were made in the Mortgage Finance Forecast from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The first-quarter forecast was lowered from $352 billion expected in the December 2016 outlook.
The trade group predicts that purchase financing will climb from $212 billion in the first quarter to $310 billion three months later.
Current-quarter expected refinances
were cut to $132 billion from $140 billion in last month’s outlook, while the second-quarter forecast was left at $120 billion.
MBA has full-year originations climbing from $1.563 trillion this year to $1.588 trillion in 2018 and $1.640 trillion the following year.
The 2017 projection was reduced from $1.571 trillion in last month’s forecast.
Full-year 2017 purchase financing is predicted to rise from $1.092 trillion in 2017 to $1.178 trillion next year and $1.245 trillion in 2019.
Refinance production is expected to fall from $0.471 trillion this year to $0.410 trillion
in 2018 and $0.395 trillion a year later. The 2017 refinance forecast was reduced from $0.479 trillion in December’s report and has been cut each month since November.
The reduction came even though MBA made no changes to its expectations for 30-year fixed rates.
Washington-based MBA has refinance share falling from 30 percent in the current year to 26 percent in 2018 and 24 percent the following year.
