Mortgage borrowers who
shopped around last week could’ve saved $48,911 on the life of a $300,000 loan,
according to LendingTree‘s Mortgage Rate Competition
Index.

The index measures the spread in the APR of the best
offers available on its website. LendingTree derives that savings claim by
comparing the amount a borrower would pay out of over the life of a loan at the
lowest available interest rate on its site versus the highest
available interest rate.

According to the company’s data, although the share of borrowers that received rates under 4% moderately edged down from last week, nearly 50% of borrowers received rates under 4%, with the index growing to 1.03 for the week ending Nov. 10, 2019. 

LendingTree indicates that for 30-year fixed-rate
mortgages, 48.2% of purchase borrowers received offers under 4%, falling from 53.5%
the previous week.

Despite the decline, the percentage is still a significant increase from 2018, when virtually no purchase offers were under 4%.

Additionally, the report highlights that across all
30-year, fixed-rate purchase mortgage applications made on LendingTree’s site, 13.1%
of borrowers were offered an interest rate of 3.75%, making it the most common
interest rate.

When it comes to 30-year
fixed-rate refinance borrowers, 48.6% received offers under 4%, retreating from
54.7% one week prior. Nevertheless, the rate is still much higher than it was
in 2018 when 0% of refinance offers were under 4%.

So, with a wider refinance
market index of 1.17, the typical refinance borrowers could have saved $55,868 by
shopping around for the lowest rate.

According to the report, across all 30-year, fixed-rate
refinance applications, the most common interest rate was 4%. This rate
was offered to about 15.5% of borrowers.

This image highlights the distribution of last week’s
mortgage fees:

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