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No Spring in Mortgage Application Volume Yet

by devteam March 18th, 2015 | Share

It has been a tough winter and with springrnless than a week away borrowers have apparently not yet emerged from hibernation.   Applications for both home purchases andrnrefinancing were lower during the week ended March 13 in spite of fallingrninterest rates.</p

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) saidrnthis morning that its Market Composite Index, a measure of application volume,rndecreased 3.9 percent on a seasonallyrnadjusted basis from the week ended March 6.  The index has lost ground in six of the pastrneight weeks.  On an unadjusted basis, the Index fell 4 percent.  </p

The Refinance Indexrndecreased 5 percent from the previous week and the refinancernshare of mortgage activity declined 1 percentage point to 59 percent of allrnapplications, the lowest share since last October.  The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index fell byrn2 percentage points while the unadjusted Purchase Index lost1 percent week-over-week and was 1 percent higherrnthan the same week one year ago.</p

Refinance Index vs 30 Yr Fixed</p

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Purchase Index vs 30 Yr Fixed</p

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FHA-backed loans received a 14.3 percentrnshare of all applications compared to 14.0 percent a week earlier. The VA share of totalrnapplications decreased to 10.3 percent from 10.8 percent and the USDA share rose from 0.8 percent to 0.9rnpercent.</p

Contract interest rates declined for allrnmortgage products and effective rates were down for all but the 15-year fixedrnrate mortgage (FRM) which was unchanged week-over-week.  The average contract interest rate forrn30-year FRM with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less)rndecreased to 3.99 percent from 4.01 percent with points increasing to 0.40 from 0.39. rnThirty-year FRM with jumbo loan balances (greater than $417,000) had a contract rate of 3.94 percentrnwith 0.33 point compared to 4.02 percentrnwith 0.27 points the previous week. </p

The rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgagesrnbacked by the FHA declined 6 basis points to 3.74 percent. rnPoints fell to 0.12 from 0.20.rn</p

The average interest rate for 15-year</bfixed-rate mortgages slipped to 3.28 percent from 3.29 percent.  Points increased to 0.34 from 0.30.</p

The rate for 5/1 adjustable rate mortgagesrn(ARMs) dropped back 19 basis points for an average contract rate of 2.99rnpercent.  Points increased to 0.43 from 0.40. rnThe ARM share of application activityrndecreased to 5.5 percent from 5.6 percent a week earlier.   </p

MBA’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey,rnwhich has been conducted since 1990, covers over 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications.  Respondentsrninclude mortgage bankers,rncommercial banks and thrifts. Base period and value for all indexes isrnMarch 16, 1990=100 and interestrnrate information is based on mortgages with an 80 percent loan-to-value ratio.  Points include the origination fee.

All Content Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Brown House Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.nReproduction in any form without permission of MortgageNewsDaily.com is prohibited.

About the Author

devteam

Steven A Feinberg (@CPAsteve) of Appletree Business Services LLC, is a PASBA member accountant located in Londonderry, New Hampshire.

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