Mortgage Monitor Report

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Home buyers taking on record-high monthly payments also lost out on additional nearly $200 billion in equity because of soaring mortgage rates, according to Black Knight.

Borrowers in July paid an average monthly principal and interest payment of $2,306 under a 30-year fixed-rate loan, the firm said Wednesday in its July Mortgage Monitor report. It took 38.3% of the median household income to pay the monthly P&I for an average-priced home, the highest share since 1984.

“We’ve been talking about affordability for quite some time now, but this puts the situation in stark relief,” said Andy Walden, vice president of enterprise research strategy at Black Knight, in a press release. The company is already identifying itself as an Intercontinental Exchange company after their heavily scrutinized merger recently closed. 

For comparison, the 30-year conforming rate was 13.2% in December 1984, Black Knight said, showing how home price growth has outpaced income growth. Mortgage rates today sit at over 7%. 

A return to a 25-year average affordability level would require either home prices falling around 27%, rates dropping by more than 4%, or 60% growth in median household income, Black Knight said. The average purchase price for rate locks through the first three weeks of August was $453,000, according to the firm.  

Adding to the pain, 23% of July purchase originations carried monthly P&I of $3,000 or more. Only 5% of borrowers paid $3,000 or more monthly in 2021. Black Knight’s figures don’t include the average $550 monthly payment for taxes and insurance, with homeowner’s coverage itself also facing financial headwinds. 

Escalating mortgage rates have decimated the refinance market, but also the home equity line of credit opportunity for homeowners. Borrower equity withdrawals have fallen 55% in the past two years, from 0.92% of mortgage holders tapping equity in 2020-2021 to just 0.4% in the past three quarters, Black Knight said. 

“In essence, over the last 15 months, there’s been nearly $200B less equity withdrawn – and reinjected into the broader economy – than might otherwise have been, due in large part to elevated interest rates,” Walden said. 

HELOCs, which rose and fell in popularity in the past 12 months, today tout rates above 8.5%, the firm found. Refis meanwhile only accounted for 14% of lock activity at the beginning of August. The originations reached record-lows earlier this year and account for just 30% of total application volume, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. 

Borrowers continue to pay their bills on time with a low 3.21% delinquency rate, although 30 day and 60 day delinquencies rose slightly, the report said. Cure rates are also declining from spring peaks, but remain up 7% year-over-year. 

Despite the rise in late payments, foreclosure starts fell 6% in July to 26,000. Prepayments also fell 12.2% in July, Black Knight said. The number of homes for sale remains muted, although the cost of homebuying has lifted some inventory pressure. 

“Slow market speeds mean there is currently a 3.2 month supply of houses on the market, the highest that metric has been since mid-2020,” the report said. “But not for the reasons you would like to see.”

Source: nationalmortgagenews.com

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In the face of spiking interest rates and historically high home prices, $3,000 monthly mortgage payments are common in today’s housing market.

According to Black Knight’s mortgage monitor report, the average principal and interest payment among borrowers purchasing a home using a 30-year fixed-rate loan hit its highest point ever in July at $2,306. That’s before taxes and insurance are factored in (an average of $550 a month). It’s up 60% over the past two years. 

“Just two years ago, only 18% of homebuyers were facing that level of payment; as of the end of July that share had grown to 51%,” remarked Black Knight Vice President of enterprise research Andy Walden.

“Beyond that, nearly one in four July homebuyers has payments north of $3,000, up from just 5% in 2021. We’ve been talking about affordability for quite some time now, but this puts the situation in stark relief,” he added.

Beyond purchase affordability, rising interest rates prevent mortgage holders to tab into their home equity

In the second quarter of 2023, mortgage holders tapped $39B in equity through cash-out refis as well as home equity loans and lines of credit. It was up modestly from the first quarter of 2023 but just half the volume of the first quarter in 2022 ($79B), before rates began to rise.

Between 2010 and 2021, mortgage holders withdrew an average 0.92% of available tappable equity each quarter. That share fell to just 0.4% over the past three quarters, researchers found. Overall, it resulted in a roughly 55% decline in equity withdrawals

In other words, since rates began to climb in early 2022, nearly $200 billion in equity that might have otherwise been withdrawn and injected into the broader economy has remained untapped, according to Black Knight. 

Tappable equity levels remain elevated, Walden noted.

HELOC rates have risen along with Fed rate hikes, with the average HELOC offering now above 8.5% for the first time in the 15+ years Black Knight has been tracking that data.

Source: housingwire.com

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Rate lock activity fell for the second month in July as mortgage rates topped 7% for the first time since November 2022.

Overall rate lock volume was down 7% month over month, with purchase lending accounting for 88% of total lock activity, according to Black Knight‘s originations market monitor report. 

Even so, purchase lock counts were down 27% year over year and 35% compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels, as high-interest rates and persisting low inventories dampened demand.

The 30-year conforming rates crossed 7% for the first time in eight months, before falling sharply and then rebounding to 6.88%, according to Black Knight’s Optimal Blue mortgage market indices.

“Purchase loans continue to dominate the origination pipeline, but current housing market dynamics are just not conducive to boosting homebuyer origination volumes,” Andy Walden, vice president of enterprise research and strategy at Black Knight, said. 

Credit scores for conforming (754) and FHA (669) borrowers remained flat in July while VA dropped one point to 712 from June.

Black Knight’s recent mortgage monitor report pointed to signs of credit tightening — attributed falling loan-to-value ratios and rising down payments.

Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) fell to 6.79% of July’s rate lock activity, as rates for such products became less competitive against fixed products.

Cash-out refinances also declined 5.4% and are hovering close to 60% below where they were in July 2022 when interest rates averaged in the mid- to high 5% range.

Rate/term refis increased by a modest 1.9% in July, but remained down more than 31% year over year from an extremely low ceiling.

Locks on such products – including cash-out refis and rate/term refis will likely remain constrained for some time to come, Black Knight noted. Just 3% of existing mortgage holders have first-lien rates at or above today’s levels.

The average loan amount fell about $2,000 in July while the average purchase price on locked loans fell to $456,000, according to Black Knight’s report. 

Normally, June typically marks the calendar peak of home prices on a non-adjusted basis.

Home prices would decrease through the end of the year and into February in normal times, but this trend does not apply in this market and this year, Walden noted. 

“Rising rates may be tamping demand for homes at such record high prices, as evidenced by rate lock activity, but they’ve still yet to overcome an even greater deficit of supply. As a result, the purchase market is in a stalemate,” Walden said. 

Source: housingwire.com

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Consumers’ increased confidence regarding their personal financial situations was largely offset by greater pessimism toward home-buying conditions, Fannie Mae’s home purchase sentiment index (HPSI) showed.

The HPSI — which tracks the housing market and consumer confidence to sell or buy a home — rose a mere 0.8 points to 66.8 in July. The full index is up 4 points year over year.

A total of three of HPSI’s six components increased month over month — including the components measuring job security and home price expectations.

However, 82% of consumers reported that it’s a “bad time to buy” a home, a new survey high. It’s up from 78% in June.

“While consumers are reporting confidence in the components related to their personal financial situations, it’s unlikely we’ll see housing sentiment catch up to other broader economic confidence measures until there is meaningful improvement to home purchase affordability,” Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s senior vice president and chief economist, said. 

While a significant majority of consumers indicated that their jobs are stable and that their incomes are the same or better than they were 12 months ago, home buying sentiment once again matched an all-time low, with only 18% telling us that it’s a good time to buy a home, Duncan noted.

“Unsurprisingly, consumers continue to attribute the challenging conditions to high home prices and unfavorable mortgage rates. Further, the share of consumers expecting home prices to continue to rise has also been on a steady climb since March, which may only add to perceptions of unaffordability,” Duncan said.

Home prices across the country are on the rise especially in the Midwest and Northeast markets, according to Black Knight‘s monthly mortgage monitor report.

Nationally, home prices in June rose by 0.67% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted basis. The annual home price increase was 0.8% in June, up from just 0.2% in May.

“We have not seen much movement in the ‘good time to sell’ component over the last few months, an indication that the current low levels of existing homes for sale will likely continue to persist in the near term, as also reflected in our latest forecast,” Duncan said. 

About 64% of respondents believe it’s a good time to sell while 36% said it was a bad time to do so, remaining flat from June. 

Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) group noted that an extremely limited number of existing homes available for sale continues to define the feature of today’s housing market. 

With an ongoing tight supply of existing homes for sale on the market, the ESR group expects overall home sales in 2023 to remain near the lowest annual level since 2009. 

Source: housingwire.com

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Lenders may have one last quarter to ride the market’s massive mortgage refinance wave after Monday data from Black Knight’s Mortgage Monitor Report revealed that despite rising interest rates, Q1 2021 refinance lending volumes are poised to remain near last quarter’s meteoric high.

“Roughly 2.8 million homeowners refinanced their mortgages in the last quarter of 2020, which saw a record-breaking $869 billion in refinance lending,” said Ben Graboske, Black Knight’s president of data and analytics.

A whopping $4.3 trillion in mortgages were originated in 2020, with $2.8 trillion in refinances, and Black Knight is confident lenders should still be able to cash in on that steady refi volume given that daily rate locks through mid-February were elevated.

That rise in refi locks suggests that increases in 30-year rates over the first 45 days of the year may have spurred formerly procrastinating borrowers to act while rates were still near historic lows.

But companies need to act fast, as Graboske noted that activity is already beginning to curtail. As of Feb. 11, there were still some 18.1 million high-quality mortgage refinance candidates, but with news of interest rates breaking 3% starting March 4, Black Knight estimates 12.9 million remain – the lowest such volume since May 2020 and down 30% in just three weeks.

Should lenders look to non-QM when the refi boom slows?

HousingWire recently sat down with Tom Hutchens, Angel Oak EVP of production, who shared how non-QM lending could be an effective way for lenders to replace lost business in the event of a refi boom slowdown.

Presented by: Angel Oak

Plus, retention is at historic record lows – just 18% of mortgage holders are retained by their servicers.

“Approximately 2.3 million borrowers were not retained in Q4 2020 alone,” Graboske said. “The current rate volatility serves to underscore the critical nature of both accurate and strategic pricing and advanced retention analytics to help identify borrowers who still have incentive and are out there transacting in the market.”

According to Black Knight, among higher-credit quality rate/term GSE mortgage refinances, borrowers who shopped the market received more than an eighth of a percent lower rate than those who refinanced with their current servicer.

Despite 3% still being a great rate for millions of borrowers, a one-eighth to a quarter turn in mortgage rates (high or low) can move the market substantially, said Logan Mohtashami, HousingWire‘s lead analyst.

“There are people who had a 4.00% rate that refinanced to 3.25% and then said, ‘Oh well now that rates are low, I’ll refinance again to 2.75%.’ But if that rate sneaks up a quarter it’s no longer ideal and its lost its appeal. They are going to wait for it to come back down, right? And then it doesn’t,” Mohtashami told HousingWire in late February.

If the mortgage refinance wave does indeed begin to level off in Q2 though, data suggests the purchase market is ready to resurge given rising economic resilience in employment and vaccine distribution. With those factors climbing, the Mortgage Bankers Association is forecasting that the Freddie Mac survey rate will reach about 3.5% by the end of 2021. And with it, a wave of young homebuyers that will support the purchase market for at least the next few years.

According to Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s chief economist, the trade organization is predicting that the mortgage industry will originate just shy of $3 trillion in total volume or 2021, with the majority – $1.57 trillion – in home purchases.

Source: housingwire.com

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The last several years have been dominated by headlines of underwater borrowers and negative equity.

In fact, it wasn’t long ago that about a quarter of all Americans with a mortgage we’re in a negative equity position, leading Merriam-Webster to give the word “underwater” a new meaning.

Let’s not forget underwater mortgage insurance either, which promises to protect you if you need to sell, even if you’re mortgage outweighs your asking price.

But we’re finally seeing a shift back to normalcy, that is, mortgages with principal balances that don’t exceed the associated property value.

You can thank surging home prices for that, which have increased so much in the past few years that some states are testing new all-time highs.

Homeowners Actually Have Equity!

As a result of all that appreciation, and to some extent tighter mortgage underwriting standards, millions of homeowners actually have equity in their homes.

It’s almost comical that this is headline-worthy, seeing that all homeowners should have a nice cushion of equity in their homes, but this is the world we live in these days.

Gone are the days of 20% down that guaranteed all homeowners would be able to sell, even if home prices didn’t perform as expected.

Instead, we’re still dealing with the consequences of zero down, which thanks to HARP, lots of loan modifications, and good old-fashioned time, are starting to abate.

Home Equity Levels Highest Since 2007

It might sound rather ominous, but home equity levels haven’t been higher since 2007, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor Report from Black Knight Financial Services.

Total home equity now stands at $7.6 trillion, up nearly one trillion from a year ago and $825 billion year-to-date. It’s also nearly two-and-a-half times the amount recorded at the end of 2011, when underwater was the word on everyone’s mind.

The company noted that over 37 million homeowners have what they refer to as “tappable” equity. That is, equity that can be pulled from the home via a cash-out refinance or home equity line/loan.

In fact, 59% of the nation’s equity ($4.5 trillion) is now available for tapping based on a maximum 80% combined loan-to-value ratio (CLTV), which is the conservative limit most lenders impose these days.

For homes in the bottom 20 percent of property values, the average homeowner can pull out about $42,000, whereas those in the top 20 percent can pull as much as $267,000.

Nationwide, the average amount of home equity available for the taking is $120,000, a figure that has risen $19,000 from one year ago.

But Home Equity Lending Has Yet to Take Off

Despite this impressive increase in equity, most borrowers have yet to take advantage, perhaps because they don’t realize their homes are worth as much as they are, or maybe because they locked in a low rate via a rate and term refinance.

Black Knight did note that second mortgage lending is on the rise, up 40% year-over-year, but still 85% below levels seen in 2007.

It’s unclear if it’ll get anywhere near those levels though, seeing that 100% CLTV cash-out refinances aren’t available anymore.

Amazingly, 39% of the $4.5 trillion in tappable equity can be found in the state of California, where home prices have chalked amazing gains of late. And Los Angeles alone accounts for 14% of the nation’s available equity.

Overall, the top 10 states account for 74% of tappable equity, while the top 10 metros account for over half.

The concern is if this equity gets tapped again, borrowers could be in for payment shock as HELOCs tied to the prime rate rise as the Fed raises rates. Couple that with another home price correction and the underwater headlines return.

(photo: mira66)

Source: thetruthaboutmortgage.com

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As the spring homebuying season comes to an end, there are distinct signs of the housing market reheating from a home price perspective. The lack of inventory drove home prices up, challenging potential buyers, Black Knight pointed out in its monthly mortgage monitor report. 

The reheating is widespread with more than half of the 50 largest U.S. markets seeing prices at or above 2022 peaks. On a seasonally adjusted basis, Black Knight’s home price index hit a new record high in May, having now fully reversed the correction in home prices seen late last year. 

Although the backward-looking annual growth rate sat at 0.1% in May, the exceptionally strong 0.7% month-over-month gain would equate to an annualized growth rate of 8.9%, Black Knight’s mortgage monitor report noted. 

That would mean the annual home price growth rate would remain at or near 0% for only a short time before inflecting and trending sharply higher in coming months, Andy Walden, Black Knight’s vice president of enterprise research, said. 

While prices are still well below peak levels across the West and in many pandemic boom towns, price firming in recent months has begun to close those gaps. 

Austin, Texas, is a notable exception. Inventory in Austin continues to run above pre-pandemic levels, putting downward pressure on prices, which have fallen to -13.8% below peak, the largest gap of any market. 

Just eight of the top 50 markets are currently more than 5% below their 2022 peaks.

The price jumps for homes comes down to the lack of inventory, the report pointed out. 

For-sale listings deteriorated in 95% of major U.S. markets in 2023. Active listings are still down more than 50% from pre-pandemic levels.

“New construction starts and completions were both strong in May, which is welcome news. However, most projects underway in the month were 5+ multi-family units, as opposed to single-family residential units,” Walden said. 

Single family residential units account for just 40% of the total number of projects underway. 

“As it stands, housing affordability remains dangerously close to the 37-year lows reached late last year, despite the Federal Reserve’s attempts to cool the market. The challenge for the Fed now is to chart a path forward toward a ‘soft landing’ without reheating the housing market and reigniting inflation,” Walden noted.

The same lever used to reduce demand – which is raising rates – has made housing unaffordable across major markets and resulted in significant supply shortages by discouraging potential sellers unwilling to list, further strengthening prices, Walden explained.

As of June 22, with 30-year rates at 6.67%, the principal and interest (P&I) payment needed to buy the median-priced home rose to $2,258, marking the highest payment on record.

Factoring in current income levels, only about 35.7% of median household income makes the average P&I payment.

It would take a 30% drop in home prices to get back to normal affordability, according to the report. Alternatively, if prices stayed the same and rates fell to 5%, it would take 19% income growth to get the market back to normal affordability. 

“At this point, even if rates come down, but not so sharply as to entice potential sellers out of their sub-3.5% mortgages, it could risk a widespread reheating of home prices across the U.S,” Walden said. 

Source: housingwire.com

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It looks like 2015 is shaping up to be a pretty stellar year for home purchase lending, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor Report from Black Knight Financial Services.

The company revealed today that home purchase mortgage originations this past June were the highest they’ve been since 2007, a year when the real estate market was pretty much on fire.

Of course, it all came crashing to a halt the following year, but hopefully this time it’s different.

It should be, given the fact that most of these loans are going to borrowers with good credit. And you’re no longer able to qualify for a mortgage simply because you have a credit score.

Yes, underwriters actually consider your employment, income, and assets these days, even if down payment requirements are creeping back toward zero again.

Average Credit Score for Purchase Mortgages Hits All-Time High

The report noted that the increase in home purchase lending is being driven almost entirely by borrowers with high credit scores.

In fact, purchase mortgages for borrowers with sub-700 credit scores are flat to slightly down from levels seen a year earlier.

And only twenty percent of purchase loans doled out over the past three months have gone to borrowers with credit scores below 700.

This explains why the weighted average credit score for purchase loans hit an all-time high of 755.

That’s good news for the real estate market as a whole because it probably means these homeowners will make on-time mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure.

But it also means a lot of borrowers with marginal credit might be getting squeezed out by credit winners when it comes time to make an offer on a home.

And eventually when home prices are out of reach, these lower-credit score borrowers might finally get a chance to buy at a premium. That could create another crisis, though such an event is probably still years away.

In the meantime, let’s focus on the fact that second quarter purchase mortgage volume was up 15% from the same period a year earlier.

Additionally, early third quarter numbers show an 11% increase from Q3 2014.

So apparently lots of people are buying homes and taking out mortgages to finance said homes, which is good news for mortgage lenders.

More Refis Going to Borrowers with Lower Credit Scores

It’s good because refinance activity is beginning to wane as borrowers get what Black Knight refers to as “prepay burnout.”

Yes, mortgage rates have been low for a long time now and many homeowners have already taken advantage. And those who haven’t may not be able to due to things like negative equity or other various reasons.

So lenders must turn to the purchase market to ride out the lull unless a new spark comes along (lower FHA premiums anyone?).

Per Black Knight, refinance activity has been “steadily declining since March” of this year and I doubt it’s going to improve as we head into the holiday season.

Interestingly, average credit scores for refinance originations have been on the decline, which could be a sign that the once bountiful well is beginning to dry up.

In other words, all the borrowers with good FICO scores already refinanced, and now lenders are perhaps getting a bit more desperate.

There’s also a chance that credit is beginning to loosen, or at least, lenders are starting to consider candidates with lower credit scores out of necessity, which may be a silver lining for some.

Source: thetruthaboutmortgage.com

Apache is functioning normally

Apache is functioning normally

In March, a modest bump in homebuyer demand, combined with a decline in for-sale inventory, drove up home prices compared to the month prior. While home prices in many Western and pandemic boom markets are still well off their peaks, 40% of major markets have seen prices return to peak levels, according to Black Knight‘s mortgage monitor report.

Nationally, home prices rose by 0.45% in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, slightly stronger than the revised 0.43% increase from the prior month.

“The strengthening in home prices is the direct result of a second month of modest increases in sales volumes meeting a continually shrinking for-sale inventory,” Andy Walden, Black Knight vice president of enterprise research, said.

Cities in the Midwest and Northeast — Columbus, Ohio (+1.1%); Hartford, Connecticut (+1.0%); Cleveland, Ohio (+1.0%); Cincinnati, Ohio (+0.9%) and Baltimore, Maryland (+0.9%) — saw the largest home price increases, along with Miami, Florida (+0.9), which is leading the South. 

The only markets in the top 50 by population where seasonally adjusted prices are still falling are Austin, Texas (-0.7%); Salt Lake City, Utah (-0.12%) and San Antonio, Texas (-0.07%). Phoenix, Arizona and Dallas, Texas are effectively flat month over month.

The annual home price growth, however, continues to cool. Prices were up just 1.0% on an annual basis, a backward-looking metric that has been falling by 1.3-1.4% each month since the start of 2023.

While the annual home price growth rate is on track to fall to roughly 0% by April, low inventory levels will limit just how far that metric will fall in the coming month, Walden noted. 

The supply of active listings fell for the sixth straight month in March, marking the lowest level since April 2022. March also saw a deterioration in supply in 90% of major markets.

New listings aren’t filling the gap either. In March, 30% fewer properties hit the market when compared to pre-pandemic norms.

Current available inventory represents just 2.6 months of supply on a seasonally adjusted basis, “tipping the scale back toward sellers in a tightly constricted market,” Walden said. 

Despite overall lower mortgage rates compared to March, recent weeks saw a pullback in purchase rate lock volume, according to Black Knight’s report. As of April 26, rates averaged 6.38% for the month, down from the 6.56% average daily rate for the month of March.

Rates remained volatile through March and April – dropping from a high of 6.85% in early March to 6.21% by early April. By mid-April, rates had climbed back up above 6.5%.

Purchase rate lock volume also fell 18% on an unadjusted basis in recent weeks. Refi volume has declined by 17% among cash-outs and by 24% among refi-term refis since mid- to late-March.

In addition, the national delinquency rate dropped 53 basis points in March to 2.92%, falling below 3% for the first time on record dating back to January 2000. The national delinquency rate was also down 13% year over year as of March.

The overall decline in delinquencies outpaced the typical March seasonal improvement of 10.5%, which was attributed to borrowers using tax refunds and other seasonal revenue to catch up on late payments, the report noted. 

Prepayment activity rose for the second consecutive month after hitting a record low of just 33 bps of single-month mortality (SMM) in January.

Housing turnover continues to drive the largest share of prepayment activity, accounting for 57% of SMM in March. Nearly two-thirds of the increase in prepayment speeds over the past two months can be attributed to the rise in housing-turnover-related prepayments, which were driven by both seasonal and rate-related pressures.

Seasonal pressures are likely to continue, as housing-turnover-related prepayments typically rise by more than 30% from March through June, which would translate to a 9-bps rise in SMM, according to the report.

Source: housingwire.com

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Surging interest rates and home price appreciation made March one of the most challenging months for prospective homebuyers looking to make purchases, according to a recent report. 

Annual home price gains saw 19.9% annual appreciation in March, down from an upwardly revised 20.1% in February, which was the first month to see price growth greater than 20%, according to Black Knight’s monthly mortgage monitor report. While the annual home price growth reflects a slowdown in March after accelerating for the previous four months, home prices are up about 6% nationwide year-to-date and the 30-year mortgage interest rate of 5.11% as of April 21 continued to propel a lack of affordable homes.  

“As measured by the share of median income required to make the principal and interest payment on the average-priced home bought with 20% down, U.S. housing was the least affordable ever back in July 2006 when it took 34.1% to make that P&I payment,” Ben Graboske, president of Black Knight Data & Analytics, said in a statement. 

“As of April 21, that payment-to-income ratio has now climbed all the way to 32.5%, within just 1.6 percentage points of the prior record,” Graboske added.

A rate increase of 50 more basis points or a 5% increase in home prices would push affordability to its worst level on record, according to the report. Since the start of 2022, rates have gone up 200 basis points and housing prices have surged 5.9%.

Adjustable-rate mortgages, which typically have lower interest rates than fixed-rate mortgages, have become an attractive option for borrowers in a challenging housing market. The spread between 30-year and ARM offerings is the widest it’s been since 2014 and within 20 basis points of an all-time high. 

How lenders can continue to serve borrowers despite housing affordability challenges

Potential borrowers who’ve been priced out of the housing market need to be able to compete with an increasingly growing share of cash buyers and investors who are beating them in bidding wars.

Presented by: Finance of America

The ARM share of purchase rate locks by volume spiked from 2.5% in December to about 8% in March – the highest share since 2017. As of mid-April, applications for ARM mortgages jumped to 8.5% of total mortgage applications, the highest level since 2019, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. 

About 95% of the 100 largest markets are now less affordable than their long term benchmarks from 1995 to 2003, up from just 6% at the start of the pandemic. Markets in a third of the country are now the least affordable they’ve ever been. 

Source: housingwire.com