The Data and Analytics division of Black Knight Financial Services released its latest Mortgage Monitor Report, based on data as of the end of February 2015. Black Knight revisited its periodic review of potential refinance candidates, looking at broad-based eligibility criteria, and found that in light of recent mortgage interest rate decreases, the population of potential refinance candidates currently sits at 7.1 million. However, according to Trey Barnes, Black Knight's senior vice president of Loan Data Products, this number has the potential to decline should rates climb, even marginally.
âBlack Knight looked at the population of borrowers whose current interest rates â as well as credit scores and loan-to-value ratios â mark them as good candidates for refinancing,â Barnes said. âIn February 2014, there were approximately 4.1 million borrowers who could both benefit from and potentially qualify for refinancing their mortgages. Through a combination of declining interest rates and increased equity among borrowers driven by home price increases, an additional three million borrowers now meet the same broad-based eligibility criteria as compared to one year prior. As of the end of February 2015, there were a total of 7.1 million potential refinance candidates.
âOf course, this population is rate-sensitive; in fact, it was largely the decline of 60 basis points in the prevailing 30-year interest rate that resulted in the year-over-year increase in potential refinance candidates. Likewise, if interest rates were to rise by just half a percentage point, 3 million borrowers would fall right back out of the running as far as benefiting from refinancing their mortgages. Another interesting finding from this analysis: prepayment speeds (historically a good indicator of refinance activity) of lower credit score borrowers â those with scores below 620 â are the lowest weâve seen since starting to track this data in 2000. As a result, the average loan age for this group is 98 months, as compared to just 38 months and less for borrowers with credit scores of 750 and above.â
This monthâs Mortgage Monitor also leverages data from Black Knightâs Home Price Index (HPI) to examine 2014 real estate transactions. The data shows that traditional market sales outpaced 2013 levels, although overall real estate sales were down for the year because of a decrease in distressed transactions (i.e., REO or short sales). Nationally, just 12.7 percent of 2014 residential real estate transactions were distressed sales, the lowest such share since 2007; down from 17 percent the year before and a high of 33 percent in 2011. Florida led the country in 2014 with 25 percent of all transactions in the state coming from distressed sales, and in fact, accounted for 26 percent of all distressed sales in the United States. Florida also has seen the lowest level of home price appreciation since the bottom of the market out of all the major âbubbleâ states (Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada). However, Floridaâs REO sales discount of 24 percent (meaning REO properties sell for $0.76 on the traditional sale dollar), although deeper than the other âbubbleâ statesâ discounts, still is lower than the national average of nearly 27 percent.