Mortgage Activity Slows During Thanksgiving Week
December 1, 2004
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 26. The Market Composite Index - a measure of mortgage loan application volume - was 673.3, a decrease of 5.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 715.0 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 36.0 percent compared with last week and was down 1.9 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.
The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 0.6 percent to 460.3 from 463.3 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 12.3 percent to 1912.3 from 2179.3 one week earlier.
Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which decreased 6.0 percent to 1002.0 from 1066.1 the previous week. The Government Index decreased 3.6 percent to 124.5 from 129.2 the previous week.
"One of the notable trends is that the average seasonally adjusted Government Purchase Index for November is down 43.8 percent compared to the same month last year while the average seasonally adjusted Purchase Index for Conventional loans has increased 20.9 percent on a year over year basis. This represents a major drop in FHA's share of the purchase market during 2004," said Jay Brinkmann, MBA's vice president of research and economics.
The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 46.4 percent of total applications from 48.4 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 32.3 percent from 34.0 percent of total applications.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.78 percent from 5.64 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.25 from 1.36 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 5.17 percent from 5.08 percent one week earlier, with points increasing to 1.29 from 1.23 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 4.12 percent from 4.13 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 0.96 from 0.99 from the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
Source: MBA
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