Refi Drop Drives Decline in Mortgage Apps, Purchase Applications Unchanged In Latest MBA Weekly Survey
Feb 27, 2008
WASHINGTON, D.C. (February 27, 2008) — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending February 22, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 665.1, a decrease of 19.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 822.8 one week earlier.
On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 25.8 percent compared with the previous week and was up 5.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.
The Refinance Index decreased 30.4 percent to 2458.9 from 3533.8 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 0.2 percent to 358.2 from 357.6 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 1.5 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 8.4 percent. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index decreased 7.1 percent to 350.7 from 377.3 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 21.4 percent to 907.1 from 1153.4 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index decreased 3.8 percent to 261.5 from 271.8 the previous week.
The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 9.7 percent to 909.5 from 1007.0. The four week moving average is down 0.2 percent to 381.3 from 382.2 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 14.2 percent to 3987.0 from 4648.2 for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 52.0 percent of total applications from 61.7 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 15.0 from 12.8 percent of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.27 percent from 6.09 percent, with points increasing to 1.15 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 5.77 percent from 5.55 percent, with points decreasing to 1.01 from 1.08 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.84 percent from 5.72 percent, with points decreasing to 0.86 from 0.91 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
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