Mortgage applications to refinance a home loan jumped 18% week to week, seasonally adjusted but still 50% lower than a year ago.
Mortgage applications to purchase a home increased 4% for the week, but were 7% lower than the same week one year ago. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances increased to 3.78% from 3.72%, with points decreasing to 0.41 from 0.43 for loans with a 20% down payment, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That was the highest rate since March 2020. One year ago, the rate was 86 basis points lower.
Mortgage rates sat near record lows for the better part of last year, but not everyone who could benefit refinanced. As of now, roughly 5.9 million borrowers could still save enough to make the process worth it, according to a recent analysis by Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider. That number was about 11 million at the start of this year and as high as nearly 20 million in late 2020.