Mortgage Applications Decrease Slightly in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

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RISMEDIA, March 20, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 14, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 652.0, a decrease of 2.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 671.7 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.8% compared with the previous week and was down 3.7% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 4.6% to 2335.0 from 2448.2 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1.0% to 365 from 368.8 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 3.1% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 7.7% and the Government Refinance Index increased 11.4%. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index decreased 1.0%% to 406.8 from 410.8 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 5.3% to 850.1 from 898.0 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 9.2% to 321.7 from 294.5 the previous week.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 6% to 668.4 from 711.1. The four week moving average is up 0.5% to 363.8 from 361.9 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 10.9% to 2452.8 from 2752.5 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 49.7% of total applications from 50.6% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 7.9 from 15.5% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.98% from 6.37%, with points decreasing to 0.890 from 1.05 (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 5.24% from 5.72%, with points decreasing to 0.97 from 1.06 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 6.95% from 6.72%, with points increasing to 1.64 from 1.27 (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.

For more information, visit http://www.mortgagebankers.org/.

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