Purchase mortgages comprised 60 percent of all originations in April, the first time the purchase share has risen to this level since April 2015. Ellie Mae said the percentage of all closed loans that were for refinancing rose from 59 percent in March to 62 percent while the refinance share fell to 37 from 40 percent.  The company's Origination Insight Report, released on Wednesday, also noted that the average time to close all loans ticked up to 45 days from 44 days in March.

Closing rates for all loans increased to 70.6 percent in May from 68.9 percent in April. These rates, calculated from a sampling of loan applications initiated 90 days prior, the February 2016 applications, rose for all loan types but the increase was most notable for FHA loans.  That overall rate improved from 66.7 percent to 71.2 percent.  The FHA number was driven by nearly a 12 percentage point improvement in the pull-through rate on refinances to 69.2 percent, the highest rate in at least 18 months.

The average FICO score across all loans was up one point to 724, the fourth consecutive monthly increase.  The distribution chart shows that 69 percent of purchases and 69 percent of refinances had FICO scores of 700 or above. Thirty-one percent of purchases had a FICO score between 600 and 699, while only 27 percent of refinances had FICO scores between 600 and 699. Eighty-two percent of conventional loans had scores above 700, while the FHA distribution showed 56 percent of scores between 600 and 699 and only 39 percent of scores over 700. The average loan-to-value ratio of all loans also increased by one percentage point to 81 percent.

"Of the total loans closed in May, 62 percent were purchases and 37 percent represented refinances," said Jonathan Corr, president and CEO of Ellie Mae. "This is up from April's data, which showed that 59 percent were purchases while 40 percent were refinances. Additionally, the 30-year note rate dropped to 4.06 percent, its lowest point since May of 2015."

Ellie Mae basis its Origination Insight Report aggregates data from a large sample of loans originated on its Encompass platform.