Purchases Dominated Pre-Brexit

While it's a bit of retrospective considering the drop in rates brought on by the Brexit news late in the month, the share of purchase  originations hit a near two-year high in June according to data released this week by Ellie Mae.  Purchases represented 65 percent of all loans that were closed during the month, up from 62 percent in May and the highest percentage since August 2014.  Eighty-five percent of FHA originations were for purchase mortgages as well.

Jonathan Corr, president and CEO of Ellie Mae said, "Purchases are continuing their upswing, representing 65 percent of the total loans closed in June, the highest percentage since August of 2014. Refinances represented only 34 percent of closed loans last month," he said. "FHA purchases are also on the rise, representing 85 percent of closed FHA loans, the highest percentage since September of 2014."

The purchase share of conventional and VA loans also increased from May.  Conventional purchases rose from 51 to 56 percent and the VA's share was up 1 percentage point to 79 percent.

The average note rate of closed loans dropped from 4.06 percent in May to 4.04 percent.  This was the lowest point in over a year.

Conventional loans had a 64 percent share of all originations; FHA a 23 percent share, and 9 percent went to the VA.

There was an increase in the average time to close all loans, whether conventional, FHA, or VA. The average time to close purchase loans rose from 45 days to 46 and the processing time for refinances jumped three days to 47 days.

Average FICO scores for closed loans rose by 2 points to 726.  Sixty-nine percent of all purchase loans had scores in excess of 700.  Average loan-to-value ratios were unchanged at 81 percent and debt-to-income ratios remained at an average of 24/38.

Closing rates for all loans dipped to 69.6 percent in June, down from 70.6 percent in May. Refinance closing rates fell from 67.2 percent to 64.7 percent and purchase closings eased back to 73.7 percent from 74.5 percent the previous month.  The drop in average pull-through rates was driven primarily by FHA loans; that rate dropped by more than 3 percentage points to 68.4 percent.

Ellie Mae calculates closing rates by reviewing a sample of loan applications initiated 90 days earlier; in this case applications submitted in March. Origination data as a whole is derived from a large sampling of approximately 75 percent of all mortgage applications initiated on Ellie Mae's mortgage management software.