RISMEDIA, August 5, 2010—The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 30, 2010. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 1.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 1.4% compared with the previous week.
The Refinance Index increased 1.3% from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 1.5% from one week earlier. This third straight weekly increase in the Purchase Index was driven by government purchase applications which increased 3.4% from last week, while conventional purchase applications were essentially flat. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 1.5% compared with the previous week, was up 7.1% relative to four weeks ago, but was 33.7% lower than the same week one year ago.
The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 0.3%. The four week moving average is up 0.9% for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is up 0.2% for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity remained flat at 78.0% of total applications from the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 5.4% from 5.7% of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.60% from 4.69%, with points increasing to 0.93 from 0.88 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. The effective rate also decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.03% from 4.12%, with points increasing to 1.01 from 0.83 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. This is the lowest 15-year contract rate ever recorded in the survey. The effective rate also decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.10% from 7.15%, with points decreasing to 0.21 from 0.23 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
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