US Mortgage Refinancing Drops to 8 Year Low

U.S. loan applications to refinance existing homes fell to their lowest in over 17-1/2 years even as most 30-year home borrowing costs fell last week, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed on Wednesday.



The Washington-based industry group said its seasonally adjusted index on homeowners’ requests for refinancing fell 3.8 percent to 958.5 in the week ended July 6. This was the lowest weekly reading since December 2000.

Refinancing’s share of weekly mortgage activity fell to its lowest since August 2008 at 34.8 percent of total applications. This compared with 37.2 percent the previous week, MBA said.

Interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate “conforming” home loans, whose balances are $453,100 or less, averaged 4.76 percent from 4.79 percent the week before, it said.

However, the average rate on 30-year loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which are often used by first-time home buyers or borrowers with patchy credit, rose to 4.80 percent from 4.78 percent the prior week.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza