Scott Happ

Apache is functioning normally

The share of refinances in mortgage origination volume dipped below 50% for the first time in 15 months in March, according to Black Knight‘s new monthly data report, the Originations Market Monitor. With interest rates continuing to tick up, the purchase mortgage market is where most lenders will focus operations over the next year.

Since December 2019, millions of homeowners have been able to save hundreds of dollars a month in mortgage payments by refinancing to record-low mortgage rates, often in the 2% range. Thanks to the Fed’s intervention to lower the cost of borrowing, many homeowners shaved 125 basis points or more on their mortgages over the past year. That was a boon for mortgage lenders, the vast majority of which rode the refi wave to historic origination volume and record profits in 2020.

But the strengthening U.S. economy and acceleration of COVID-19 vaccines has pushed interest rates back up dramatically over the last quarter. By mid-January, mortgage rates began to rebound from historic lows, and by the end of March, Black Knight estimated the average 30-year mortgage rate sat near 3.34%. That was up 60 basis points from February, though still down 20 basis points from the same time last year.

In March, the share of refinancings fell to 48%, forcing many lenders to quickly pivot away from refis and toward the purchase market.

“Recent – and sharp – upward movements in interest rates have shifted the mortgage originations landscape very quickly,” said Scott Happ, Black Knight’s president of secondary marketing technologies. “The wave of refinance activity of the last year and some months has suddenly given way to a purchase-heavy mix. The implications of this shift touch nearly every area of mortgage lending, which in turn has implications for the wider economy.”

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Despite refi activity in freefall, overall rate lock volume was up 2.5% in March, with purchase locks jumping 32% from February. Cash-out refinance locks also rose 4% month-over-month.

The three metropolitan areas with the greatest percentage of lock volume was the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro, New York-Newark-New Jersey metro and the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro. In the NY-NJ-PA metro in particular, rate lock data was up 11.7% month-over-month, and refis still took more than half of the origination volume.

But the top 20 metros were neck-and-neck for whether purchases or refis made up more of the lending pie.

“This marks the first time – but almost certainly not the last – that purchase loans have made up a majority share of monthly mortgage lending since December 2019,” said Happ. “We also saw credit scores pull back, a trend that’s likely to continue among refis as high-credit borrowers, who have been largely driving record volumes, exit the market.”

If these homeowners do slowly exit the market, credit availability will continue to open up for borrowers with lower credit scores and options for higher LTV products. Zillow‘s senior economist Jeff Tucker estimates this next wave of buyers will be millennials.

“More affordable, medium-sized metro areas across the Sun Belt saw significantly more people coming than going – especially from more expensive, larger cities farther north and on the coasts,” said Tucker. “The pandemic has catalyzed purchases by millennial first-time buyers, many of whom can now work from anywhere.” 

On average, Black Knight estimated a typical credit score for a conforming loan was around 751 in March, six points lower than a year ago. On the other hand, credit scores averaged close to 666 for FHA loans, around four points higher year-over-year. According to the report, Black Knight said it’s seen year-to-date increases in the share of FHA and non-conforming originations, while conforming volumes – though still representing the lion’s share of March lending – are down.

Source: housingwire.com

Apache is functioning normally

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose nine basis points from the week prior to 3.02%, according to data released Thursday by Freddie Mac‘s PMMS. This is the first time in 10 weeks mortgage rates have risen above 3%.

“As the economy progresses and inflation remains elevated, we expect that rates will continue to gradually rise in the second half of the year,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “For those homeowners who have not yet refinanced – and there remain many borrowers who could benefit from doing so – now is the time.”

Even with rising rates, mortgage applications gained 2.1% last week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Refinances in particular increased for the second consecutive week, pushed higher by a 4% bump in conventional refinance applications. However, this a far cry from the volume generated in 2020, when rates were in the 2% range.

Black Knight’s most recent rate lock data revealed that excitement in the market has waned since February. Mortgage rates ticked up nearly a quarter of a percentage point throughout February, eventually peaking at 3.18% at the start of April. Since then, rates have fluctuated above or below 3% by roughly seven basis points. 

Despite significant incentives to refinance since then, Scott Happ, president of Black Knight’s secondary marketing technologies, said refinance activity simply hasn’t rebounded as expected.

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“As interest rates declined from March through May, refinance incentive rose by 15%,” Happ said. “This brought the number of high-quality refi candidates in the market to over 14 million as of the end of May, but rate lock volume has failed to keep pace.”

The bond market’s interest rates jumped last week after Federal Reserve officials indicated rate hikes could arrive as early as 2023, a year before originally expected. However, the Fed has yet to mention when it would start scaling back its massive bond-buying program, one of the biggest reasons mortgage rates have been near record lows for close to a year.

Source: housingwire.com

Apache is functioning normally

Fewer buyers rushed to lock mortgages last month amid a rapid climb in long-term mortgage rates, reflecting home affordability concerns, reports from Mortgage Capital Trading and Black Knight showed. 

Total mortgage rate locks by dollar volume were down 5% in April from the previous month, according to MCT’s monthly Mortgage Lock Volume Indices report. Compared with the same period last year, the number of rate locks by mortgage volume was down 25.4%. 

The average 30-year conforming mortgage rate climbed to 5.27% last week, marking the highest average since 2009, according to Freddie Mac PMMS. Black Knight’s Optimal Blue OBMMI pricing engine, which considers refinancings and additional data from the Mortgage Bankers Association, finished the month of April at 5.42%.

Refinancing has seen the biggest impact of the rising-rate pressure. Rate locks for rate-and-term refinances, which is driven primarily by a drop in interest rates to lower monthly mortgage payments, were down 36.4% in April from the previous month. Compared with April 2021, rate-and-term refinances were down 89.2%. 

Cash-out refinance activity, in contrast, is led by increasing home values by homeowners seeking to tap into their home equity. In April, cash-out refinance rate locks were down 31.1% from March and slumped 51.7% from a year earlier.

Black Knight’s monthly originations market monitor report showed a similar downward trend of mortgage rate locks. Rate lock production volume activity was down 20.3% month over month, driven by a 50% drop in rate-term-refinance lending activity.

Cash-out refi locks dipped 40% in April as homeowners likely sought other products including Home Equity Line of Credits [HELOCs] or second linens, to access tappable equity without sacrificing historically low first-lien mortgage rates, which were secured with real estate as collateral.

In a traditional home equity product, the lender disburses a lump sum of cash upfront to the buyer, who then pays the loan back in fixed-rate payments. A HELOC, by contrast, is a revolving line of credit that allows borrowing as needed, with a variable interest rate. 

April’s decline in rate lock activity is “hardly surprising,” said Scott Happ, president at Optimal Blue, citing half of all mortgage holders holding current first lien rates below 3.5%. The combined decline in refinance locks pushed the refi share of the market down to 20% last month, marking the lowest point on record since at least January 2018, when Optimal Blue began tracking the metric. 

“That being said, while purchase locks were down somewhat from March, they remained flat from last April, reflecting consistent and resilient demand from homebuyers,” Happ said in a statement. 

Purchase rate locks measured by MCT, however, were up 2.2% month over month in April and 7.55% from a year earlier, “a bright spot even as mortgage rates have increased rapidly in 2022.”

MCT, founded in 2001, launched its first monthly mortgage lock volume report on Monday. The indices are based on the actual dollar volume of locked loans, not the numbers of applications. 

“Especially in a tight purchase market. Applications are a less reliable metric for the mortgage industry as there is a higher likelihood of having multiple applications per funded loan,” the MCT report noted. 

Black Knight’s monthly market monitor reports provide origination metrics for the U.S. and the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas by share of total origination volume. The New York-Newark-Jersey City regions had the highest rate lock volume at 4.1% in April. The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim regions had the second-highest lock volume rate (3.9%) trailed by the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria (3.8%) region. 

Source: housingwire.com

Apache is functioning normally

Overall mortgage rate lock took a hit in May, led by a drop in refinance activity, both for rate-term refis and cash-outs. In a higher rate environment, lenders were more reliant on the purchase market for origination volumes.

Rate locks were down 4.8% last month, according to Black Knight’s monthly mortgage originations market report. Purchase locks, which are not as rate-sensitive as refinancings, accounted for 82% of the entire share of rate locks in May, the largest slice since Black Knight’s Optimal Blue began tracking the data in 2018. 

Mortgage rates, measured by Black Knight’s Optimal Blue OBMMI pricing engine, finished the month of May at 5.34%, down 7 basis points from the previous month, but that wasn’t enough to push up refinance rate lock volume. 

Rate/term refinance lending activity declined 23.6% in May from the previous month and was down 89.9% year over year. Cash-out refinance locks also dropped 11.9% from April and 42.2% from May 2020. 

“We’ve seen rate/term refinance activity essentially evaporate and cash-out activity is now suffering as well,” said Scott Happ, president of Optimal Blue, a division of Black Knight. “While there is volume pressure across the board due to rising rates, purchase volumes are holding up the best and are now driving 82% of all origination activity.”

Purchase volumes fell 2.3% in May from April and remained unchanged from the same period last year. When excluding the affect of home appreciation on volumes, purchase locks were down 8.5% year-over-year in May. 

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Government loan products gained market share as the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Affairs (VA) lock activity increased at the expense of agency volumes, a trend also likely reflected in the decline of the average loan amount, ranging between $362,000 to $359,000, according to Black Knight. 

Average credit scores fell in May, led by a drop in cash-out refinance scores, which are now below 700 on average. It dropped 20 points in the last three months and 33 points year over year.

Black Knight’s monthly market monitor reports provide origination metrics for the U.S. and the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas by share of total origination volume. 

The New York-Newark-Jersey City MSA had the highest rate lock volume at 4.4% in May. The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria area had the second-highest lock volume rate (3.8%) trailed by the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (3.7%) area.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated borrower credit scores for cash-out refis in May.

Source: housingwire.com