by Calculated Risk on 4/28/2010 08:19:00 AM

The MBA reports: Purchase Applications Increase, Refinance Applications Decline in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume decreased 2.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ...

The Refinance Index decreased 8.8 percent from the previous week, while the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 7.4 percent from one week earlier and reached its highest level since October 2009. The increase in the purchase index was driven largely by the government purchase index, which increased 11.9 percent ...

“Purchase activity continues to increase as we approach the end of the homebuyer tax credit program,” said Michael Fratantoni, MBA's Vice President of Research and Economics. “Purchase applications were up almost 9 percent from a month ago, with a disproportionate share of the increase due to government purchase applications. Government applications for purchasing a home accounted for almost 49 percent of all purchase applications last week.”

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 55.7 percent of total applications from 60.0 percent the previous week. The refinance share is at its lowest since August 2009 ...

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.08 percent from 5.04 percent, with points decreasing to 0.91 from 0.98 (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.

This is the highest level for the purchase index since last October.