The current refinancing wave might nearly have passed, but surveys indicate that plenty of Americans are eager to catch what's left of this one or grab the next.
Fannie Mae's 1993 National Housing Survey found that 14% of the more than 2,000 people it questioned are considering a refi. Roughly 31% have refinanced their mortgages in the past; 19% of all people questioned did their refi last year or this year.
Baby Boomers also seem likely to influence the decision to refinance for some time to come. The Federal National Mortgage Association survey showed 46% of thow poued said that reducing the length of the mortgage was the most important goal of refinancing, while 40% said lower payments was priority No. 1. This bolsters the notion that many families refinancing are baby boomers in their 40s who want to pay off their homes before hitting retirement age.
Refinancings remain a mainstay of the business, constituting 44.3% of the new loan applications last week and 45.3% of the dollar volume in those applicatons, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's weekly survey. But March refinancings accounted for roughly 60% of all new applications,and MBA's refi index, which stood at 1465.6 as of March 12, had fallen to 737.2 by the week ended June 4.
Mortgage loan applications nationwide for the week ended June 4 slumped 20.2% from the previous week, MBA's weekly survey shows. MBA based the decline on the fact that the week included the Memorial Day holiday. Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey says the 30-year rate for the same week averaged 7.48%, one basis point above the week-earlier level.
