Following the release of its Mortgage Monitor report earlier this month, which showed that the increase in mortgage interest rates during November had essentially cut the number of potential refinance candidates by more than 50%, Black Knight Financial Services released updated data this week showing that, as a result of further increases in early December, another 700,000 borrowers fell out of the “refinanceable” population.
According to Freddie Mac, the average rate for a 30-year, fixed mortgage rate hit 4.13% last Thursday. The increases that took place from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8 reduced the refianceable population by another 10%, according to Black Knight.
What’s more, the rate increases that occurred between Nov. 8 (just after the election) and Dec. 8 reduced the refianceable population by about 60%.
There are now just over 3.3 million borrowers who could both benefit from and likely qualify for a refinance, according to the firm – and that number is likely to keep dropping now that the Federal Reserve has voted to increase the Fed Funds rate, which will push mortgage rates even higher.
The refi population has only been below this point twice in recent history: December 2013 and January 2014, when rates were above 4.4%, Black Knight points out.
