Mortgage Applications Decrease Slightly In Latest MBA Weekly Survey


The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 8, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 425.9, a decrease of 1.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 432.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.2 percent compared with the previous week and was down 36.9 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 4.2 percent to 1074.6 from previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index remained unchanged. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 1.2 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 2.9 percent.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 5.2 percent. The four week moving average Purchase Index is down 3.4 percent, while this average is down 7.9 percent for the Refinance Index.

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

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.57 percent from 6.41 percent, with points increasing to 1.14 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-rate mortgages increased to 6.17 percent from 6.02 percent, with points increasing to 1.06 from 1.02 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.15 percent from 7.17 percent, with points increasing to 0.38 from 0.36 (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.