Mortgage Applications Decrease Slightly In Latest MBA Weekly Survey

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RISMEDIA, August 21, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 15, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 419.3, a decrease of 1.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 425.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.6% compared with the previous week and was down 34.2% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 3.7% to 1034.5 from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 0.4% to 314.0 from one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 0.7% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 0.2%.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 4.0%. The four week moving average is down 1.7%, while this average is down 7.7% for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 34.8% of total applications from 35.2% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 8.0% from 7.3% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.47% from 6.57%, with points decreasing to 1.10 from 1.14 (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 5.99% from 6.17%, with points increasing to 1.18 from 1.06 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.07% from 7.15%, with points increasing to 0.42 from 0.38 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

For more information, visit www.mortgagebankers.org.

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