Mortgage Applications Slightly Increase In Latest MBA Weekly Survey



The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 1, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 432.6, an increase of 2.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 420.8 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 2.4 percent compared with the previous week and was down 33.7 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 4.4 percent to 1121.8 from 1074.4 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1.8 percent to 315.2 from 309.5 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 0.3 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 7.2 percent.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 4.2 percent to 466.3 from 486.5. The four week moving average is down 3.7 percent to 330.0 from 342.6 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 4.8 percent to 1266.0 from 1330.3 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 35.9 percent of total applications from 35.2 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 6.9 from 7.3 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.41 percent from 6.46 percent, with points decreasing to 1.13 from 1.16 (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 6.02 percent from 5.98 percent, with points decreasing to 1.02 from 1.18 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.17 percent from 7.25 percent, with points decreasing to 0.36 from 0.39 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

**SPECIAL NOTES**

The survey covers approximately 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100