Update on the Discontinuation of fhfa's monthly interest rate survey (mirs)

On May 29, 2019, FHFA published its final Monthly Interest Rate Survey (MIRS), due to dwindling participation by financial institutions. MIRS had provided information on a monthly basis on interest rates, loan terms, and house prices by property type (all, new, previously occupied); by loan type (fixed- or adjustable-rate), and by lender type (savings associations, mortgage companies, commercial banks and savings banks); as well as information on 15-year and 30-year, fixed-rate loans. Additionally, MIRS provided quarterly information on conventional loans by major metropolitan area and by Federal Home Loan Bank district, and was used to compile FHFA’s monthly adjustable-rate mortgage index entitled the “National Average Contract Mortgage Rate for the Purchase of Previously Occupied Homes by Combined Lenders,” also known as the ARM Index.

As some banks use the ARM Index as the basis for adjusting the interest rates on adjustable-rate mortgages, FHFA created and designated as the replacement for the ARM Index a version of Freddie Mac’s 30-year Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) that adjusts for differences between the two. This new index is called “MIRS Transition Index” and will be published on fhfa.gov on the final Thursday of every month. June 2019 was the first MIRS Transition index value to be published. The MIRS Transition index is intended to be used in lieu of the discontinued index for currently outstanding loans, and not as a reference rate on newly-originated adjustable-rate mortgages. The MIRS Transition Index was briefly referred to as PMMS+. It is not a replacement for PMMS.

  
MIRS Transition Index