Mortgage Purchase Activity Up In Latest Survey

December 8, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending December 3. The Market Composite Index - a measure of mortgage loan application volume - was 696.2, an increase of 3.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 673.3 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 43.8 percent compared with last week and was up 15.4 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased by 6.6 percent to 490.9 from 460.3 the previous week and was up 22.7 percent from 399.8 the same week last year. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 1.1 percent to 1890.6 from 1912.3 one week earlier.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.68 percent from 5.78 percent one week earlier, with points increasing to 1.27 from 1.25 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 5.09 percent from 5.17 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.26 from 1.29 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 4.08 percent from 4.12 percent one week earlier, with points increasing to 0.99 from 0.96 from the previous week (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which increased 3.6 percent to 1037.7 from 1002.0 the previous week. The Government Index increased 1.6 percent to 126.5 from 124.5 the previous week.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 45.6 percent of total applications from 46.4 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 34.5 percent from 32.3 percent of total applications.

Source: MBA


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