St Casimirs Mortgage Minute

Credit Availability Isn't as Tight as Experts Thought

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) changed its methodology to more accurately determine mortgage credit availability, which led to the finding that mortgage credit availability has actually increased over the past several months. "We expanded our historical series to cover over 10 years of historical data, and followed that with the introduction of four MCAI [Mortgage Credit Availability Index] sub-indices, conventional, government, conforming, and jumbo, to help users better understand what is driving changes in the overall MCAI," said Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics at the MBA. "We are excited to announce an updated methodology that responds more effectively to changes in the marketplace and better accounts for the frequent addition and subtraction of investor offerings." The MCAI increased 1 percent to 165.3 in July, with an increase indicating that credit is loosening. The jumbo and government MCAIs saw the greatest increase in availability, both up 1.3 percent monthly, followed by the conventional MCAI, up 0.7 percent, and the conforming MCAI, up 0.1 percent. "The overall credit availability increase in July was driven by an uptick in programs that allow for refinancing among relatively lower credit score borrowers," Fisher said. "We observed this trend in both the conventional and government programs."

From "Credit Availability Isn't as Tight as Experts Thought"
HousingWire (08/04/16) Ramírez, Kelsey