Purchase Market Starts to Rev Up in April, But Refi Activity Strong
May 8, 2015
Refinance activity continued to dominate the flow business at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in April, but 2015 is shaping up as a decent year for purchase mortgages as well. The two GSEs securitized $26.34 billion of purchase mortgages in April, a 24.3 percent increase from the previous month. That’s still well below the level produced in the second half of 2014, when monthly production averaged $31.79 billion. But Fannie and Freddie securitized $96.86 billion of purchase mortgages during the first four months of 2015, a 20.0 percent increase from the same period last year. The refinance business has done most of the heavy lifting this year. Refi loan securitization was up 88.7 percent on a year-to-date basis and accounted for....(includes data charts)