Ellie Mae, a provider of enterprise-level, on-demand automated solutions for the residential mortgage industry, released its Origination Insight Report for August 2012. The report draws its data and insights from a robust sampling of the significant volume of loan applications — more than 20 percent of all originations in the United States — that flow through Ellie Mae’s Encompass360 mortgage management software and Ellie Mae Network.

To get a meaningful view of lender “pull-through,” Ellie Mae reviewed a sampling of loan applications initiated 90 days prior (i.e., the May applications) to calculate a closing rate for August 2012, which was 47.8 percent, compared to 45.8 percent in July 2012.

“The 30-year note rates on closed loans continued to decline, dropping from 3.87 percent in July to 3.763 percent in August 2012. August’s rate was down nearly 100 basis points from the same time last year and the lowest point since we began tracking,” said Jonathan Corr, chief operating officer of Ellie Mae. “The percentage of ARMs also continued its decline to 2.7 percent in August 2012, the lowest point since we began tracking in August 2011, when the percentage of ARMs was 8.3 percent.

“The closing rate for purchase loans increased for the fourth month in a row, from 58.7 percent in July to 60.1 percent in August,” he said. “The closing rate for refinances also increased, from 37.9 percent in July to 40.9 percent in August, and the time to close these refinances grew from 48 to 51 days.

“The percentage of refinances at 95 percent-plus LTV dropped for the third consecutive month, from 10.2 percent in June and 8.7 percent in July to 7.74 percent in August, a possible sign that HARP 2.0 continues to be cooling off, which is in line with what the Federal Housing Finance Agency has been reporting,” Corr added.