by Calculated Risk on 10/18/2006 12:17:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Rates Rise as Refinance Applications Decrease

Click on graph for larger image.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 585.8, a decrease of 2.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 599.1 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.3 percent compared with the previous week and was down 11.4 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 5.3 percent to 1758.2 from 1857 the previous week and the Purchase Index increased by 0.4 percent to 384.7 from 383.3 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates increased slightly:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.33 percent from 6.27 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.94 percent from 5.88 percent ...

This second graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages since January 2002.

This is the second week of loan activity after the New Nontraditional Mortgage Guidance was released. It will be interesting to see if the guidance has any impact on applications over the next few weeks.