Mortgage Applications Decrease In Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 18, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 489.6, a decrease of 6.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 522.2 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.1 percent compared with the previous week and was down 19.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 5.6 percent to 1392.7 from 1474.9 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 6.7 percent to 335.6 from 359.7 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 6.3 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) decreased 7.7 percent.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 1.4 percent to 500.7 from 493.7. The four week moving average is up 0.2 percent to 351.0 from 350.5 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 3.4 percent to 1379.0 from 1333.9 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 39.4 percent of total applications from 39.2 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 8.5 from 9.1 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.59 percent from 6.22 percent, with points decreasing to 1.05 from 1.21 (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 6.10 percent from 5.74 percent, with points decreasing to 1.11 from 1.13 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs remained unchanged at 7.16 percent with points decreasing to 0.29 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.