The share of borrowers with mortgage rates under 5% is growing – slowly.

According to LendingTree's Mortgage Rate Competition Index, borrowers with rates under 5% moderately rose to nearly 26% for the week ending March 24, 2019. 

The report states that for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, only 26% of purchase borrowers received offers under 5%, rising from 13% last week. That being said, this is still an increase from 2018’s rate when 0.3% of purchase offers were under 5%.

(Click to enlarge; Source: LendingTree)

However, across all 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage purchase applications made on LendingTree’s website, 16.1% of borrowers were offered an interest rate of 4.375%, making it the most common interest rate.

When it came to 30-year fixed-rate mortgage refinance borrowers, 31.3% received offers under 4.25%, rising from 12.1% one week prior. This is much higher than 2018’s rate when 1% of refinance offers were under 4.25%.

Furthermore, across all 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage refinance applications, the most common interest rate was 4.25%. This rate was offered to 17% of borrowers, according to the report.

LendingTree also reports that across all 30-year fixed-rate mortgage purchase applications on its site, the index edged up 3 basis points from the previous week, coming in at 0.81. This means that over 30 years, the average borrower could have saved $38,123 on a $300,000 loan.

Lastly, with a wider refinance market index of 0.93, the typical refinance borrowers could have saved $43,712 by shopping for the lowest rate.

NOTE:  The LendingTree Mortgage Rate Competition Index measures the spread in the APR of the best offers available on its website.