Mortgage Applications Fall in Latest MBA Survey

November 29, 2006

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the holiday shortened week ending November 24. found that: the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 599, a decrease of 3.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 623.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 34.4 percent compared with the previous week and was down 1.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 9.6 percent to 1749.6 from 1935.3 the previous week and the Purchase Index increased by 1.3 percent to 406.7 from 401.4 one week earlier. The seasonally-adjusted Conventional Index decreased by 3.9 percent to 888.6 from 924.7 the previous week, and the seasonally-adjusted Government Index decreased 4.4 percent to 116.1 from 121.5 the previous week. The four week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index is up 1.1 percent to 622.8 from 615.7. The four week moving average is up 2 percent to 405.8 from 398 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 0.5 percent to 1901.3 from 1891.2 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 46.9 percent of total applications from 48.6 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 24.5 from 25.5 percent of total applications from the previous week. The ARM share is at its lowest level since October 2003.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages remained at 6.13 percent , with points increasing to 0.97 from 0.95 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. The 30 year rate remained at its lowest level since January 2006.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.86 percent from 5.88 percent , with points decreasing to 0.87 from 0.96 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 5.87 percent from 5.88 , with points increasing to 0.81 from 0.8 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Source: MBA


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