Fannie Mae Introduces New Refinance Application-Level Index (RALI)

WASHINGTON, DC – Fannie Mae (FNMA/OTCQB) announced today the launch of its Refinance Application-Level Index (RALI), a weekly series designed to provide the market timely and comprehensive tracking of refinance activity and historical trends. The RALI sources data from the industry's most widely used automated underwriting system, Fannie Mae's Desktop Underwriter® (DU®), to provide lenders, investors, and other market participants with increased transparency on the past week's refinance application trends, supporting more refined prepayment projections. The RALI will be published weekly each Tuesday at 10:00 am ET, except where noted in the publication calendar.

"We are pleased to begin sharing the Fannie Mae Refinance Application-Level Index with external users, as we believe it will support more accurate tracking, modeling, and planning of refinance activity by mortgage market participants," said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae Senior Vice President and Chief Economist.

"Forecasting refinance originations and prepayments has become more challenging in the past two years, as the observed relationship between refinance incentive and prepayments has evolved," said Devang Doshi, Fannie Mae Senior Vice President, Capital Markets – Single-Family Products. "The RALI has been a strong leading indicator for prepayment activities, and we believe the additional transparency it brings industry participants will improve prepayment modeling performance."

Fannie Mae's RALI provides two measures, a dollar volume measure of unpaid principal balance (RALI ($)) and a loan count measure (RALI (count)). For the week ending June 10, 2022, which followed the Memorial Day holiday, the dollar volume of refinance applications increased 17.9 percent week over week. RALI dollar volume is down 69.5 percent compared to the same week last year. RALI count increased 16.2 percent week over week and is down 68.6 percent compared to the same week last year.

For more information on the RALI, including the Perspectives blog, methodology, FAQs, and publication calendar, please visit our Research & Insights page on fanniemae.com.

To receive e-mail updates with other housing market research from Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group, please click here.

Opinions, analyses, estimates, forecasts, and other views of Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research (ESR) group included in these materials should not be construed as indicating Fannie Mae's business prospects or expected results, are based on a number of assumptions, and are subject to change without notice. How this information affects Fannie Mae will depend on many factors. Although the ESR group bases its opinions, analyses, estimates, forecasts, and other views on information it considers reliable, it does not guarantee that the information provided in these materials is accurate, current or suitable for any particular purpose. Changes in the assumptions or the information underlying these views could produce materially different results. The analyses, opinions, estimates, forecasts, and other views published by the ESR group represent the views of that group as of the date indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of Fannie Mae or its management.