Tag Archives: Purchase Loans

Freddie Mac released last week its latest Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi), revealing a 0.5 percent uptick in September to a reading of 74.4 after months of slight declines. The most recent improvement puts the index a few points short of the lower threshold for a market considered to be in "stable" territory.

MBA's Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, a closely watched measure of application volumes, dropped 4.3 percent for the week ending November 21, the group said Wednesday. The decline followed a 4.9 percent bump during the previous week, which included an adjustment for Veterans Day.

In its latest Origination Insight Report, released Thursday, mortgage technology provider Ellie Mae reported that refinancing activity accounted for 40 percent of overall mortgage volume in October, marking the highest level since March. Despite the increase in demand, lenders were able to improve their closing time on refinance loans.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a seasonally adjusted increase of 4.9 percent in mortgage applications for the week ending November 14. The figure also includes an adjustment for the Veterans Day bank holiday. The jump accompanied a slight dip in interest rates, which fell to an average 4.18 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

In Freddie Mac's latest Economic and Housing Market Outlook for the United States, the company's economists turn their attention away from 2014—a mixed year for housing, especially compared to 2013—and toward 2015, which they say will see continued strengthening in the market for home purchase mortgages as the economy improves on a broad basis.

Total mortgage application volume, including both purchase loans and refinances, dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.9 percent for the week ending November 7, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

According to an examination of application numbers by macroeconomic research company Capital Economics, total mortgage application volume jumped 10.1 percent in October, bouncing back after four straight months of declines. The headline measure received a major boost from refinance applications, which were up 18.5 percent month-over-month to arrive at an eight-month high.

According to a snapshot of mortgage trends released this week by Guaranteed Rate, purchase loans accounted for 73 percent of all mortgage volumes last quarter, up from 63 percent a year prior. The increase came as refinancing numbers dropped off by more than a third annually—"indicative of the fact that the third quarter of 2013 was when the mortgage market began to account for higher interest rates," Guaranteed Rate said.

Freddie Mac's Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi) slipped 0.19 percent from July to a reading of 73.3 in August, the company reported. With the drop, the index's three-month measure showed a 0.47 percent decline. Despite August's headline decline, analysts at Freddie Mac say the MiMi is showing promising trends, especially at the local level.

After declining for most of the year thus far, the share of refinance loans experienced a 3 percentage point boost in September, according to the latest Origination Insight Report from Ellie Mae. At the same time, a lower percentage of loans made their way to closing in September compared with the month before, and the time it took to close those loans that did make their way through the approval process increased, according to Ellie Mae.