Fed Chair Yellen to speak tomorrow, Elli Mae: Origination Insight Report closing rates climbed, Gas prices spiked

September 25, 2017

Several Federal Reserve members will be speaking today, including New York’s William Dudley, Chicago’s Charles Evans and Neil Kashkari from Minneapolis. The Fed’s Dudley said this morning that U.S. fundamentals are favorable and that inflation’s transitory effects are fading. Mr. Dudley went on to say that he expects stronger wage growth with slightly-better-than-average economic growth. Fed Chair Yellen will be speaking tomorrow on topics such as inflation and uncertainty about monetary policy. The speeches come after the Fed announced last week that it will begin to unwind its massive balance sheet beginning in October.

Cloud-based platform provider Ellie Mae released its Origination Insight Report for August late last week revealing that overall closing rates climbed to 71.7%, the highest since January of 2017 and up from 70.6% in July. And despite an uptick in mortgage rates, the percentage of refinances remained steady at 35% of total loans. Ellie Mae went on to say that the percentage breakdown of all closed loans remained steady for the third consecutive month with conventional loans representing 64% of all closed loans, FHA loans representing 22% of all closed loans, and VA loans representing 10% of all closed loans.

After Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast, gas prices spiked as many refineries went offline due to the disaster. In the past two weeks, refineries have come back on line while gas prices have pushed lower. The national average prices for a regular gallon of gas hit $2.67 in the week following Harvey, but is now $2.57 on average across the nation. Price will most likely continue to edge lower in the coming weeks as fewer drivers are seen on the roads in September, October and in early November.