Mortgage Rates Drop In Latest MBA Survey

March 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 5. The Market Composite Index of mortgage loan applications-a measure of mortgage loan applications for purchases and refinancings-increased by 1.2 percent to 889.1 on a seasonally adjusted basis from 878.7 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased by 1.6 percent compared with last week and was down 43.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased by 1.4 percent to 428.6 from 422.6 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index increased by 1.0 percent to 3567.6 from 3532.2 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which increased 1.4 percent to 1278.9 from 1260.8 the previous week. The Government Index decreased 1.1 percent to 238.5 from 241.2 the previous week.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 56.1 percent of total applications from 56.4 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 28.1 percent of total applications from 28.8 percent the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decrease to 5.34 percent from 5.49 percent from one week earlier , with points increasing to 1.35 from 1.32 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.62 percent from 4.78 percent one week earlier , with points decreasing to 1.18 from 1.28 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 3.20 percent from 3.34 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 0.96 from 0.99 the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Source: MBA


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