Although the level of monthly Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. refinances moved higher, a drop in refinances of Federal National Mortgage Association loans more than offset the increase.
Residential loan originators refinanced 198,081 mortgages owned or backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the month of July.
That was slightly fewer than refinance production in June, a month that saw 198,503 government-sponsored enterprise refinance transactions completed.
But volume has moved up compared to the same month
last year, when there were just 119,698 Fannie and Freddie mortgages refinanced.
The monthly data was reported by the regulator and conservator of the pair of secondary lenders, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
FHFA’s data indicate that
Washington-based Fannie’s loans accounted for 98,962 of the latest activity, less than 106,290 a month earlier.
But over at McLean, Virginia-based Freddie, 99,119 of its loans were refinanced, rising from 92,213 in June.
The volume of Home Affordable Refinance Program transactions continued to slide, falling to 9,267 in July 2015 from 9,426 a month prior.
HARP production has also diminished from a year prior, when there were 15,670 mortgages refinanced through the program.
