Posted by John_NorCal on 10/23/06 9:48am
Msg #154422

Mortgage Bankers Assoc. News

MBA's Latest Survey Indicates Declining Mortgage Activity
10/18/2006

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending October 13 on October 18, 2006. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 585.8, a decrease of 2.2 percent from last week. On an unadjusted basis, the index decreased 2.3 percent compared with the previous week and was down 11.4 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 5.3 percent to 1758.2 from 1857 the previous week and the Purchase Index increased by 0.4 percent to 384.7 from 383.3 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity includes the Conventional Index, which decreased by 2.2 percent to 868.7 from 888 the previous week, and the Government Index, which decreased 2.8 percent to 114.2 from 117.5 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index is down 0.4 percent to 596.3 from 598.8. The four-week moving average decreased 0.8 percent to 387.1 from 390.4 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 0.1 percent to 1815.9 from 1813.5 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 45 percent of total applications from 46.4 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 26.5 percent of total applications from 26.9 percent the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.33 percent from 6.27 percent. The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.01 percent from 5.9 percent. Additionally, the average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs also increased from 5.88 percent to 5.94 percent.