As fast as they rose, refinances responded to rising rates and retreated. But the good news is that jumbo loans became less expensive relative to their conforming counterparts.
At 209, the U.S. Mortgage Market Index for the week ended July 22 from Mortech Inc. and MortgageDaily.com, was down 11 percent from the previous week.
Compared to the same week last year, activity sank 37 percent.
Driving the week-over-week decline were refinances, which fell 13 percent. Refinance activity had been up 44 percent last week.
This week’s refinance share was 52 percent, easing from 54 percent seven days earlier and 61 percent a year earlier. The latest refinance share reflected a rate-term share of 38 percent and a cashout share of 14 percent.
Conventional business was down 11 percent from last week, while pricing inquiries for loan insured by the Federal Housing Administration dropped 7 percent.
Adjustable-rate activity eased 9 percent, and the share of overall activity that was for adjustable-rate mortgages declined to 9.89 percent from 9.91 percent.
Disrupting new business were interest rates, with the conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgage coming in at 4.70 percent this week, up 2 basis points from last week. The 30-year was 4.49 percent during the same week last year.
But the jumbo 30-year fell 6 BPS from the last week, cutting the jumbo-conforming spread to 41 BPS from 47 BPS a week ago.
Meanwhile, the spread between conforming 15-year and 30-year mortgages rose to 88 BPS from 86 BPS.
