ICE Mortgage Monitor: Share of Mortgages Above 5% Interest Rate Creeps Up

(Source: ICE McDash; Image courtesy of ICE; Breakout image courtesy of Pixabay/pexels.com)

Intercontinental Exchange, Atlanta, released its latest mortgage monitor with May’s data. Among other findings, 24% of mortgage holders had interest rates of 5% or higher, up from just 10% in 2022.

Four million loans originated from 2022-2024 have rates of 6.5% or higher; almost 2 million sit at 7% or more. There’s also about 690,000 with rates just below 7%–ICE noted that may point to refinance activity.

“All in, there are 5.8M fewer sub-5% mortgages in the market today than there were at this time in 2022. This has been a slow-moving change, as borrowers with lower rates have sold their homes or, to a smaller degree, refinanced to withdraw equity. The entire market is acutely aware of how elevated rates have been constraining origination volumes,” said Andy Walden, ICE’s Vice President of Research and Analysis. “But seen from another angle, the same dynamic is also serving to gradually enlarge the population of folks with high-rate mortgages, who are actively waiting for the moment a refinance makes sense. This would benefit both a growing number of homeowners and lenders.”

For example, VA loans are seeing somewhat of a surge in refinancing, ICE noted, with the VA share of rate/term refi activity accounting for more than 30% of recent rate locks, up from less than 10% in 2023. The average VA refinance borrower is early into their 30-year loan.