by Calculated Risk on 8/09/2006 12:13:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Application Volume Increases

Click on graph for larger image.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 553.3, an increase of 4.9 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 527.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 4.3 percent compared with the previous week but was down 24.9 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index increased by 3.4 percent to 388.9 from 376.2 the previous week and the Refinance Index increased by 7.1 percent to 1518.1 from 1417.2 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates decreased:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.45 percent from 6.62 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 5.96 percent from 6.18 percent ...

Change in mortgage applications from one year ago (from Dow Jones):

Total	-24.9.%
Purchase	-21.2%
Refi	-30.2%
Fixed-Rate	-22.7%
ARM	-30.0%

This graph shows the monthly YoY comparison between 2006 and 2005.

Purchase activity was especially strong in the Summer and early Fall of 2005, and that makes the comparisons look ugly. Still, year-to-date purchase activity is off 12.1% compared to 2005 and appears to be getting worse.

Even though there was a small increase in activity last week, the previous week was the least market activity since May 2002.