Mortgage Purchase Application Volume Up In Latest Survey

March 2, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 25. The Market Composite Index - a measure of mortgage loan application volume - was 710.1, a decrease of 2.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 727.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 10.8 percent compared with last week and was down 26.7 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased by 5.3 percent to 440.0 from 417.8 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 9.9 percent to 2281.1 from 2532.0 one week earlier.

"A quarter point rise in mortgage rates over the last few weeks has obviously cut into refinance volume," said Michael Cevarr, MBA's director of member surveys.

Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which decreased 3.1 percent to 1058.2 from 1091.7 the previous week. The Government Index increased 6.8 percent to 129.1 from 120.9 the previous week.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 44.8 percent of total applications from 49.3 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity remained at 30.7 percent of total applications.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.74 percent from 5.67 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.19 from 1.29 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 5.27 percent from 5.19 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.27 from 1.30 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 4.27 percent from 4.18 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.02 from 1.03 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Source: MBA


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