MCT Launches New Rate Lock Index
MCT has launched the new MCTlive! Mortgage Lock Volume Indices to help all industry participants better understand key trends in the mortgage industry. As the company serving more lenders with hedging and pipeline management solutions than any other single provider, MCT is uniquely positioned to capture data and understand macro trends in the industry. MCT-collected statistics are also unique to the industry given the diversity in lender size across its client base.
This data represents a broad and balanced cross section of several hundred lenders of various sizes and business models in the mortgage industry across retail, correspondent, wholesale, and consumer direct channels. Taking this broad based, diverse, and representative view of entire market, it provides a more accurate picture of what is happening in mortgage originations than indices are influenced by mega lenders. MCT will be publishing the MCTlive! Mortgage Lock Volume Indices on a monthly basis, intended to serve as an enduring data tool for industry participants, analysts, and watchers.
MCTlive! Mortgage Lock Volume Indices are based on actual dollar volume of locked loans, not numbers of applications, therefore providing a much more accurate picture of industry lock activity than other surveys or application data. The data is also broken out by transaction type: purchase, rate/term refinance, and cash out refinance. Especially in a tight purchase market, applications are a less reliable metric for the mortgage industry as there is a higher likelihood of having multiple applications per funded loan. Prequals do not convert at as high of a rate in the current market as has historically been the case, especially when applications are counted at the early stage of entering a property address.
Covering the period from April 1 through April 30, 2022, this inaugural MCTlive! Lock Volume Indices shows that total mortgage rate locks by dollar volume decreased 5.0 percent in April, and lock volume is down 25.4 percent from a year ago. Purchase locks are up 2.2 percent over the course of the month and 7.55 percent from one year ago, a bright spot even as mortgage rates have increased rapidly in 2022. That increase in mortgage rates is evident in the refinance figures, as rate/term refinances are down 36.4 percent and cash out refinances are down 31.1 percent month-over-month. From one year ago, cash out refinance volume is down 51.7 percent, while rate/term refinance volume has dropped 89.2 percent.
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