Mortgages: what's up, what's down

RISMEDIA, March 13, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 7, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 671.7, a decrease of 1.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 684.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1.4% compared with the previous week and was down 3.4% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index decreased 4.7% to 2448.2 from 2569.0 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1.6% to 368.8 from 363.1 one week earlier. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 0.4% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 10.0%. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index increased 2.3% to 410.8 from 401.6 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 3.3% to 898.0 from 929.0 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 6.0% to 294.5 from 277.8 the previous week.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 12.1% to 711.1 from 809.1. The four week moving average is down 2.4% to 361.9 from 370.7 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 18.2% to 2752.5 from 3365.8 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 50.6% of total applications from 52.4% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 15.5 from 17.3% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.37% from 5.98%, with points decreasing to 1.05 from 1.15 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.72% from 5.26%, with points decreasing to 1.06 from 1.08 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 6.72% from 5.83%, with points increasing to 1.27 from 0.85 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.