By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
In its current edition of the Mortgage Monitor, covering data from November 2016, Black Knight Financial Services looks at the changing landscape of refinance lending. With the rise in interest rates that started this past fall and accelerated after the election, the population of borrowers which is both likely to qualify for refinancing and has an incentive to do so has fallen to just 2.8 million, a 65 percent drop from October and the lowest level seen since 2008.
When that low water mark was reached eight years ago, refinance originations were 60 percent lower than they are now, but Black Knight points out, that the nation was also in the midst of a recession. The lowest refinancable population post-recession occurred in January 2014 when interest rates climbed to nearly 4.5 percent, leaving only 3.25 million people in a position to refinance. The following month refinance volumes dropped to a level 55 percent lower than they are today.
