by Calculated Risk on 2/17/2010 07:00:00 AM

The MBA reports: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ...

The Refinance Index decreased 1.2 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4.0 percent from one week earlier. ...

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages remained unchanged at 4.94 percent, with points increasing to 1.09 from 1.06 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index and four week moving average since 1990.

The 4 week average of the seasonally adjusted purchase index declined to 221.7, just above the 12 year low set in early January.

Refinance activity also declined even with rates below 5%, since most borrowers who are able to refinance already have - and the other half of homeowners with mortgages are unable to refinance for several reasons. (see: Dina ElBoghdady and Renae Merle at the WaPo: Refinancing unavailable for many borrowers ).