Mortgage Rates Up , Applications Down
An increase in mortgage rates may have been the determining factor that dragged down U.S. mortgage applications to the lowest level since early March.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 27, 2009) — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 22, 2009. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 786.0, a decrease of 14.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 915.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 13.8 percent compared with the previous week and increased 28.5 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.
The Refinance Index decreased 18.9 percent to 3890.4 from 4794.4 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1.0 percent to 256.6 from 254.0 one week earlier.
The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 4.7 percent. The four week moving average is up 0.5 percent for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 6.2 percent for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 69.3 percent of total applications from 73.6 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 2.6 percent from 2.4 percent of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 4.81 percent from 4.69 percent, with points increasing to 1.28 from 1.13 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed
