For the second month in a row, refinances of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans climbed to the highest level this year.
Residential lenders refinanced 138,908 Fannie and Freddie mortgages in October — the most during any month so far this year.
The previous month, refinances of government-sponsored enterprise loans totaled 138,510 — the busiest month in 2014 up to that point.
The production statics were provided by the GSEs’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
But refinance activity fell short of the 191,637 transactions in October 2013.
Refinances of Washington-based Fannie loans accounted for 82,605 of October 2014’s transactions, increasing from the prior month’s 79,393.
Freddie’s portion, however, fell to 56,303 from 59,117 in September.
Of the overall October total, 13,745 loans
were refinanced through the Home Affordable Refinance Program.
HARP volume slipped from 14,399 a month earlier and sank from 46,387 a year earlier.
While Fannie’s HARP volume declined
8 percent from September to 8,299, McLean, Va.-based Freddie saw a 1 percent rise to 5,446 HARP transactions during October.
