by Calculated Risk on 4/21/2010 08:07:00 AM

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

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 13.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ...

“Treasury rates fell last week causing a decline in mortgage rates. As a result, refinance applications picked up over the week, as some borrowers took advantage of this recent rate volatility to lock in a low fixed-rate loan,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics. “Purchase applications continued to increase coming out of the Easter holiday, as we approach the end of the homebuyer tax credit, and are up modestly over last month.”

The Refinance Index increased 15.8 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 10.1 percent from one week earlier. ...

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 60.0 percent of total applications from 58.9 percent the previous week. ...

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.04 percent from 5.17 percent, with points increasing to 0.98 from 0.91 (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.

So far the increase in activity because of the expiration of the tax credit has been "modest". I expect any increase this year to be less than the increase last year ...