Posted on 12/03/2003 6:24:24 AM PST by Starwind
WASHINGTON , D.C. ( December 3, 2003 ) - The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 28. The Market Composite Index of mortgage loan applications - a measure of mortgage loan applications for purchases and refinancings - decreased by 11.7 percent to 685.1 on a seasonally adjusted basis from 775.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased by 39.9 percent compared with last week and was down 29.7 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.
The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 3.9 percent to 441.8 from 459.9 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 19.6 percent to 2100.0 from 2612.2 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which decreased 13.1 percent to 940.1 from 1082.0 the previous week. The Government Index decreased 1.7 percent to 259.6 from 264.2 the previous week.
The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 50.0 percent of total applications from 53.3 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 26.6 percent from 27.0 percent the previous week.
"As expected, last week was a slow week for mortgage application activity. After adjusting the mortgage indices for the impact of the Thanksgiving holiday and other seasonal factors, the purchase index was down only 3.9 percent" said Michael Cevarr, MBA's manager of member surveys.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.93 percent from 5.73 percent one week earlier , with points remaining at 1.45 (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 5.24 percent from 5.07 percent one week earlier , with points increasing to 1.45 from 1.41 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 3.63 percent from 3.59 percent one week earlier , with points increasing to 1.07 from 1.06 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
**SPECIAL NOTES**
The survey covers approximately 40 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage originations, 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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.