Survey Says - Refi Drop Drives Decline in Mortgage Apps, Purchase Applications Unchanged

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RISMEDIA, Feb. 28, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 22, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 665.1, a decrease of 19.2% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 822.8 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 25.8% compared with the previous week and was up 5.1% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 30.4% to 2458.9 from 3533.8 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.2% to 358.2 from 357.6 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 1.5% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 8.4%. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index decreased 7.1% to 350.7 from 377.3 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 21.4% to 907.1 from 1153.4 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index decreased 3.8% to 261.5 from 271.8 the previous week.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 9.7% to 909.5 from 1007.0. The four week moving average is down 0.2% to 381.3 from 382.2 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 14.2% to 3987.0 from 4648.2 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 52.0% of total applications from 61.7% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 15.0 from 12.8% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.27% from 6.09%, with points increasing to 1.15 from 1.10 (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 5.77% from 5.55%, with points decreasing to 1.01 from 1.08 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.84% from 5.72%, with points decreasing to 0.86 from 0.91 (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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