Mortgage credit availability increased 1.7% in July to a score of 184.1 on the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI).
Much of the increase was due to a rise in credit availability for jumbo loans.
A decrease in the MCAI indicates that lending standards are tightening, while increases are indicative of loosening credit. The index was benchmarked to 100 in March 2012.
Credit availability for conventional mortgages increased 4.2% in July while credit for government loans decreased 0.4%.
Within the conventional realm, credit availability for jumbo loans increased a significant 5.8%, while credit availability for conforming loans increased by 2.0%.
“Credit availability continued to expand, driven by an increase in conventional credit supply,” says Joel Kan, associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting for the MBA, in a statement. “More than half of the programs added were for jumbo loans, pushing the jumbo index to its fourth straight increase and to its highest level since we started collecting these data. There was also continued growth in the conforming non-jumbo space, which reached its highest level since October 2013.”