Mortgage Applications Increase In Latest MBA Weekly Survey



The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 29, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 453.1, an increase of 7.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 421.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 5.8 percent compared with the previous week and was down 27.0 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 2.1 percent to 1059.7 from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 10.5 percent to 349.0 from one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index increased 6.1 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 19.9 percent.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 1.2 percent. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Purchase index is up 2.7 percent, while this average is down 1.5 percent for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 34.0 percent of total applications from 35.2 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 6.6 from 7.9 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.39 percent from 6.44 percent, with points decreasing to 1.0 from 1.03 (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 5.96 percent from 5.94 percent, with points decreasing to 1.03 from 1.13 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.11 percent from 7.15 percent, with points decreasing to 0.35 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.