After several weeks of decreases, mortgage applications bumped up this week, increasing 0.5% from last week’s somewhat notable decrease of 10.8%, according to the latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) for the week ending November 8, 2024.
“Mortgage rates continued to increase last week, driven by higher Treasury yields as financial markets digested the likely impacts of a Trump presidency,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist. “The Federal Reserve’s 25-basis-point rate cut was already anticipated and did little to move the markets. The 30-year fixed rate was at 6.86% last week, its highest since July 2024. However, despite the increase in rates, applications increased for the first time in seven weeks.”
According to MBA, the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2% compared with the previous week.
The Refinance Index decreased 2% from the previous week and was a notable 43% higher than the same week one year ago. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2% from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 2% compared with the previous week and was 1% higher than the same week one year ago.
“Purchase applications picked up and remained close to levels from a year ago. FHA and VA purchase applications drove the stronger overall purchase activity, increasing 3% and 9%, respectively,” added Kan. “FHA mortgage rates bucked the overall trend and were lower over the week, which likely helped some borrowers. Conventional purchase applications were also up slightly. Meanwhile, the upward climb in rates led to refinance activity falling to its lowest level since May 2024.”
More data this week: The refinance share of mortgage activity remained unchanged at 39.9% of total applications from 39.9% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 6.5% of total applications.
For more data from this week’s MBA mortgage applications report, click here for the full report.
