New purchase activity has not been this high since August of last year.
Based on overall shopping activity by prospective borrowers for both purchase and refinance transactions, activity was up 7 percent — with the U.S. Mortgage Market Index from Mortech Inc. and MortgageDaily.com for the week ended April 15 climbing to 214 from the previous week’s 200.
The Mortgage Market Index was lower, however, than 224 during the same week last year.
Driving the weekly improvement was purchase activity. The purchase MMI climbed to 127 from the prior week’s 117 and hasn’t been this high since the week ended Aug. 25, 2010, when it stood at 128.
Refinance activity edged higher, with the refinance MMIÂ increasing to 87 from the previous week’s 83. Refinance share slipped to just below 41 percent from slightly more than 41 percent. The most-recent rate-term refinance share was 29 percent, and the cashout share was 12 percent.
This week marked the addition of the FHA MMI to the report. The inaugural FHAÂ MMI was 40, and the week’s FHA share was 18.47 percent.
The latest overall activity strengthened as the 30-year conforming fixed-rate mortgage eased to 5.073 percent from 5.083 percent seven days earlier. The 30-year was 5.142 percent a year earlier.
The spread between the jumbo 30-year mortgage and the conforming 30-year loan improved to 59 basis points from 60 BPS last week.
The spread between the 30-year and the 15-year was unchanged at 0.78 percent.
