After a four-month decline, mortgage lenders saw shares of purchase loan volumes rise in December even as mortgage rates continued to fall, according to the latest Origination Insight Report released by Ellie Mae, a leading provider of innovative on-demand software solutions and services for the residential mortgage industry. Meanwhile, the closing rates for purchase loans ended the year at 67.1 percent, the highest level since Ellie Mae began tracking this data in August 2011.
According to the December Origination Insight Report, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage dropped from 4.273 percent to 4.251 percent, finishing the year more than a quarter of a percent lower than the average rate of 4.592 percent in December 2013.
“While many observers thought rates would rise last year, lenders were instead treated to at least a little more refinancing volume,” Ellie Mae President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Carr said. “The fact that lenders are closing purchase loans at a higher rate is great news as we head toward the spring home buying season.”
The Origination Insight Report mines its application data from a sampling of approximately 57 percent of all mortgage applications that were initiated on the Encompass origination platform. Ellie Mae believes the Origination Insight Report is a strong proxy of the underwriting standards employed by lenders across the country.
Other findings of the report include:
• The average time to close was 42 days
• The average 30-year interest rate for all loans was .472 percent less than January 2014 (4.723 percent)
• The percentage of closed loans with a FICO score less than 700 was 31 percent, the same as one year ago