Refinancing activity was very strong in the fourth quarter,...

Refinancing activity was very strong in the fourth quarter, even with higher interest rates. The large share of borrowers who took cash out when refinancing their mortgages combined with the strong overall refinance volume led to an extraction of home equity through prime first-lien refinances of $70.3 billion, slightly higher than the revised estimate of $67.2 billion extracted in the third quarter. We expect the share of all refinance borrowers who take out cash to remain high in 2006 because of the relatively high cost of second mortgages and home-equity lines of credit.