MCT: Rate Lock Volume Continues To Plummet

The volume of mortgage rate locks in October fell more than 60% from a year earlier, as mortgage rates continue to climb.

Mortgage Capital Trading (MCT), a hedging and pipeline management provider that also specializes in capital markets software and services, released its monthly MCTlive! Lock Volume Indices for October 2022 on Thurdsay.

MCT said the October indices show that year-over-year total lock volume fell 60.4% from the same month last year. 

While both the rate/term refinance lock figure and the purchase index increased month-over-month, those figures were also down from a year earlier, falling 28.9% and 15.8%, respectively. 

The indices saw total mortgage rate locks by dollar volume decrease 17.1% month-over-month in October. Cash-out refinances also fell, dropping 27.6% month-over-month and f87l.2% rom one year ago.

Rate/term refinance volume has dropped 93.2% from 2021, MCT said. 

The company noted that the average loan amount increased from $292,000 to $317,000, with loan sizes up 8.3% over the past year.

MCT's rate lock activity indices are based on the actual dollar volume of locked loans, not the number of applications, the company said. 

MCT said its monthly reports represent a balanced cross-section of several hundred lenders among retail, correspondent, wholesale, and consumer-direct channels. The October MCTlive! Lock Volume Indices are organized by transaction type: purchase, rate/term refinance, and cash-out refinance.