Overall volumes of mortgage loan rate locks appear, as yet, largely unaffected by the recent increases in mortgage interest rates, but have definitely changed their composition. Black Knight says, in its current Originations Market Monitor , that total rate lock activity rose 19 percent from February to March, driven by 31 percent growth in those for purchasing. That brought the growth in those locks to 70 percent over the past three months. In the meantime, refinancing locks dropped 13.8 percent in March. “Mortgage interest rates spiked in March, with 30-year offerings climbing 70 basis points over the course of the month,” said Scott Happ, president, Optimal Blue, a division of Black Knight. “In fact, our Optimal Blue Mortgage Market Indices daily interest rate tracker (OBMMI) showed the average 30-year conforming rate reach as high as 4.93 percent late in the month before pulling back slightly to close out March at 4.79 percent. And yet, despite seeing the fastest one-month rise in rates in nearly 13 years, we saw purchase lock volumes increase by 31 percent from February – likely as prospective buyers moved to lock in their loans before rates climbed any higher.” While total refinancing fell, cash-out refinances, which are somewhat insulated by continued home value appreciation, increased by a modest 1.6, slightly offsetting the now six-month long slide in rate/term refis. They were down another 15.4 percent in March. for an 81percent year-over-year decline. The share of refinances in the pipeline was 28 percent, the lowest since November 2018.