Home Purchase Applications Rise during Holiday-shortened Week

September 13, 2006

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending September 8. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 584.2, an increase of 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 566.3 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 8.3 percent compared with the previous week and was down 22.8 percent compared with the same week one year earlier. The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index increased by 5.3 percent to 410.2 from 389.7 the previous week and the Refinance Index increased by 0.1 percent to 1597 from 1594.7 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity includes the Conventional Index, which increased by 3.8 percent to 870.8 from 838.7 the previous week, and the Government Index, which decreased 6 percent to 106.2 from 112.1 the previous week.

The four week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index is up 1 percent to 567.1 from 561.4. The four week moving average is up 1.6 percent to 389.5 from 383.4 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 0.1 percent to 1602.4 from 1600 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 40.3 percent of total applications from 41.0 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 25.5 percent of total applications from 26.2 percent 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 increased to 6.32 percent from 6.31 percent, with points decreasing to 1.06 from 1.10 (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 5.98 percent from 5.97 percent, with points decreasing to 1.08 from 1.14 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.96 percent from 5.91 percent, with points decreasing to 0.82 from 0.83 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The spread between the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate and the one-year ARM rate is 36 basis points. This is the narrowest it has been since January 2001.

Source: MBA


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