The final month of last year saw refinances of government-sponsored enterprise loans climb to a 10-month high. But annual refinance production tumbled.
Based on an analysis of data reported by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 155,911 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages were refinanced during December 2017.
In addition to increasing from 147,699 transactions the previous month, GSE refinance volume was the strongest it’s been since February 2017, when the total was 157,920.
But production has collapsed compared to 251,900 in December 2016.
The December 2017 total consisted of
91,577 Fannie Mae refinances and 64,334 Freddie Mac transactions.
For all of last year, refinances of GSE loans numbered
1,676,013, sinking from 2,325,672 in 2016. Fannie’s portion of the 2017 total was 1,015,002, while Freddie’s share was 661,011.
Refinances through the Home Affordable Refinance Program during December declined to 2,002 transactions — the fewest for any month on record.
Since HARP went live in April 2009, there have been 3,484,025 mortgages refinanced through the program.
