Purchase and Refinance Applications Up Despite Continued Rise In Interest Rates

May 5, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 30. The Market Composite Index of mortgage loan applications-a measure of mortgage loan applications for purchases and refinancings-increased by 4.4 percent to 780.9 on a seasonally adjusted basis from 748.0 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased by 4.8 percent compared with last week and was down 35.3 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased by 4.1 percent to 482.5 from 463.5 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index increased by 4.7 percent to 2516.0 from 2403.0 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which increased 4.0 percent to 1134.2 from 1091.0 the previous week. The Government Index increased 8.9 percent to 191.4 from 175.7 the previous week.

The refinance share of mortgage activity remained unchanged at 44.0 percent of total applications. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 32.1 percent of total applications from 32.7 percent the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.10 percent from 6.01 percent from one week earlier, with points increasing to 1.38 from 1.28 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.44 percent from 5.27 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.24 from 1.43 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 3.69 percent from 3.67 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 0.98 from 0.99 from the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Source: MBA


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