Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

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RISMEDIA, Oct. 16, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 10, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 489.3, an increase of 5.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 465.5 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 5.4% compared with the previous week and was down 17.0% compared with the same week one year earlier.

“Treasury yields were extremely volatile last week. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note-the benchmark for 30-year fixed mortgage rate-moved up about 40 basis points over the course of the week,” said Orawin Velz, MBA’s associate vice president of Economic Forecasting. “Lower yields earlier in the week appeared to have spurred refinance activity, which then faded as the week went on and rates began to rise.”

The Refinance Index increased 12.5% to 1514.2 from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 0.3% to 313.5 from one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index increased 0.4% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) decreased 2.1%.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 7.9%. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index is down 5.0%, while this average is down 11.2% for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 46.4% of total applications from 43.4% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 2.6% from 2.3% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.47% from 5.99%, with points increasing to 1.14 from 1.09 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.17% from 5.71%, with points increasing to 1.18 from 1.16 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 6.67% from 6.60%, with points increasing to 0.43 from 0.37 (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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