Purchase Loans Now Outpacing Refis

Purchase loans continued to increase as arnpercentage of loan originations in April. rnEllie Mae’s Origination InsightrnReport for the month put the purchase share of all closed loans at 52rnpercent, a 6 percentage point jump from March and the first time in 2015 that morernthan half of loans were originated for that purpose. </p

Seventy-two percent of FHA loans were forrnpurchasing, also a 6 point month-over-month increase but significantly lowerrnthan the 80+ percent share of its loans that went for purchasing every monthrnfrom May 2014 through January 2015. rnFifty-eight percent of conventional loans were originated for purchasingrnand 68 percent of VA loans.</p

Of all loans originated in April 64 percent werernconventional, 24 percent FHA, 9 percent VA and 3 percent were classified as “other.”</p

Ellie Mae noted that the percentage of FHArnrefinances that had a greater than 95 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio dipped fromrn41.6 percent in March to 38.1 percent.  Therncompany did not comment as to whether this may be related to the new 97 percentrnLTV loans offered by Fannie Mae and more recently by Freddie Mac but the sharernof high LTV conventional loans did rise month-over-month from 4.3 to 5.2rnpercent.  </p

The company said that the number of days required tornclose a loan in April were the most since January 2014, likely due to higherrnthan expected origination volume.  Itrntook an average of 45 days to close a loan with refinances averaging 48 daysrnand purchase loans 43 days. </p

The closing rate for all loans was 65.2 percent,rnexceeding 65 percent for the first time since Ellie Mae began tracking thatrninformation in August 2011. 

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