ELLI Ellie Mae, Inc.

Ellie Mae® (NYSE Amex: ELLI), a leading provider of enterprise level, on-demand automated solutions for the residential mortgage industry, today released its Origination Insight Report for March 2012. The report draws its data and insights from a robust sampling of the significant volume of loan applications—more than 20% of all originations in the U.S.—that flow through Ellie Mae’s Encompass360® mortgage management software and Ellie Mae Network™.

Monthly Origination Overview for March 2012

                                    March

2012

    February

2012**

   

3 MonthsAgo

(December

2011)

   

6 MonthsAgo

(September2011)

Closed Loans                             Purpose                           Refinance       61%     67%     60%     60% Purchase       39%     33%     40%     40% Type                           FHA       28%     25%     26%     24% Conventional       64%     67%     66%     68% Days to Close                           All       42     44     47     41 Refinance       42     43     48     39 Purchase       42     45     45     45 ARM %       4.2%     4.3%     5.4%     6.0% 15 Year %       20.2%     19.6%     18.1%     22.1% 30 Year – Note Rate       4.080     4.095     4.263     4.412

**Please note: The table in the press release for our February 2012 Origination Insight Report incorrectly stated the number of days to close for the month ended November 2011 for refinance and purchase and the number of days to close for the month ended February 2012 for purchase. These numbers should have been: 46, 45 and 45, respectively, instead of 42, 46 and 44, respectively. The numbers were correctly stated in the full report.

Profiles of Closed and Denied Loans for March 2012

                       

Closed First-Lien Loans(All Types)

    Denied Loans

(All Types)

FICO Score (FICO)       749     699 Loan-to-Value (LTV)       77     85 Debt-to-Income (DTI)       23/35     27/43

More information and analysis of closed and denied loans, by loan purpose and investor, is available in the full report at http://www.elliemae.com/aboutus/about_reports.asp.

To get a meaningful view of lender “pull-through”, Ellie Mae reviewed a sampling of loan applications initiated 90 days prior (i.e., the December 2011 applications) to calculate a closing rate for March. Ellie Mae found that nearly 47% of all applications closed (see full report) with a higher percentage of purchase mortgages closing (56.4%) than refinances (42.1%).

“The numbers showed a significant pick up in the percentage of purchase loans to 39% in March versus 33% in February, and a corresponding increase in FHA share: 28% of closed loans versus 25% in February,” said Jonathan Corr, chief operating officer of Ellie Mae. “The increase in FHA share was not surprising given FHA originations tend to skew more heavily towards purchase.

“In March, as we moved into the Spring selling season, underwriting standards for both purchase and refinance loans continued to be highly conservative,” Corr added. “The average loan denial in March still had a FICO score just shy of 700, and more than 15% in equity or a down payment. On average, there was an 8-point spread between back-end DTI ratios for approved-versus-denied loans last month. The full report on our website shows that the average denials for conventional refinances and purchases continued to have significantly higher FICOs, lower LTVs and more restrictive DTIs than the overall averages.

“The timeline from application to closing for the average loan was 42 days in March, two days shorter than February, which suggests that the industry was working through the surge in refinance applications that came in at the end of last year,” Corr added. “With rates at historically low levels, the percentage of borrowers opting for adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) in March was at the lowest point in the past six months and roughly half of where it was at the end of last summer.

“Finally, as a result of all the positive feedback we’ve received about this study,” Corr said, “we have decided to expand the information that we are providing in the full report on our website. We will now provide monthly data going back to August 2011.”

About Ellie Mae Origination Insight Report

In 2011, the total volume of mortgages that ran through Ellie Mae’s Encompass360 mortgage management software was approximately two million loan applications, or 20% of all U.S. mortgage originations. The Origination Insight Report mines its application data from a robust sampling of approximately 33% of all mortgage applications that were initiated on the Encompass origination platform. Given the size of this sample and Ellie Mae’s market share, the Company believes the Origination Insight Report is a strong proxy of the underwriting standards that are being employed by lenders across the country.

The Origination Insight Report focuses on loans that closed or were denied in a specific month and compares their characteristics to similar loans that closed or were denied in the prior three-month and six-month periods. The closing rate is calculated on a 90-day cycle, rather than a monthly basis, because most loan applications typically take one and a half months to two months from application to closing. Loans that do not close could still be active applications, withdrawn by consumer, or denied for incompleteness or non-qualification.

The Origination Insight Report reports aggregated, anonymized data and does not disclose client-specific or proprietary information.

News organizations have the right to re-use this data, provided that Ellie Mae, Inc. is credited as the source.

About Ellie Mae

Ellie Mae, Inc. is a leading provider of on-demand automation solutions for the mortgage industry. The Company offers an end-to-end solution, delivered using a Software-as-a-Service model that serves as the core operating system for mortgage originators and spans customer relationship management, loan origination, and business management. The Company also hosts the Ellie Mae Network™ that allows mortgage professionals to conduct electronic business transactions with the lenders and settlement service providers they work with, to process and fund loans. The Company's offerings include the Encompass®, Encompass360® and DataTrac® mortgage management software systems.

Ellie Mae was founded in 1997 and is based in Pleasanton, California. To learn more about Ellie Mae, visit www.EllieMae.com or call 877.355.4362.

© 2012 Ellie Mae, Inc. Ellie Mae®, Encompass®, Encompass360®, DataTrac®, Ellie Mae Network™ and the Ellie Mae logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Ellie Mae, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Other company and product names may be trademarks or copyrights of their respective owners.