Mortgage Applications Increase

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RISMEDIA, March 6, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 29, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 684.9, an increase of 3.0% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 665.1 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 15.3% compared with the previous President’s Day holiday shortened week and was up 1.1% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 4.5% to 2569.0 from 2458.9 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1.4% to 363.1 from 358.2 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index increased 0.9% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 3.5%. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index increased 14.5% to 401.6 from 350.7 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index increased 2.4% to 929.0 from 907.1 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 6.2% to 277.8 from 261.5 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 11% to 809.1 from 909.5. The four week moving average is down 2.8% to 370.7 from 381.3 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 15.6% to 3365.8 from 3987.0 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 52.4% of total applications from 52.0% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 17.3 from 15% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.98% from 6.27%, with points unchanged at 1.15 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.26% from 5.77%, with points increasing to 1.08 from 1.01 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 5.83% from 5.84%, with points decreasing to 0.85 from 0.86 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The survey covers approximately 50% of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.

For more information, visit www.mortgagebankers.org.

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