The spring buying season has officially begun as rate lock volume skyrocket in March, according to the March Black Knight Originations Market Monitor Report.
- M-O-M: Rate lock dollar volumes jumped 43% from February, much higher than the 2% increase in February and total volume is now at the highest level since August.
- Y-O-Y: Despite the big monthly jump, rate lock volume is down 50.7% year-over-year.
Break It Down. Purchase demand saw the biggest jump with a 44.2% increase from February followed by rate/term and cash-out refis up 35.7% and 30.6%, respectively.
- Year-over-year purchases are down 40%, rate/term refis are down 71.1%, and cash-out refis 79.9%.
Quality Loans. The uptick in volume was not the result of lenders dropping their standards. In fact, purchases (731) and cash-outs (688) both saw their average credit score climb one point while rate/term refis fell 3 points to 713.
- Purchases are holding the best year-over-year with a three-point dip followed by rate terms (-12) and Cash-outs (-25).
Loan Amount. The average loan amount was up 2.0% from February to $355,000 in March.
BOTTOM LINE: The spring buying season is upon us. If housing inventory doesn’t start moving in the right direction a lot of people are going to be shocked that home prices will be back on the rise again.