by Calculated Risk on 1/10/2007 09:36:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Mortgage Applications Increase

Click on graph for larger image.

This week’s results include an adjustment to account for the New Year’s Day holiday. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 671.1, an increase of 16.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 575.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 33.2 percent compared with the previous week and was up 12 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased by 17.3 percent to 1923.8 from 1640.4 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased by 16.2 percent to 472.8 from 406.9 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates decreased:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.13 from 6.22 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 5.79 percent from 5.84 ...

The second graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages since January 2002. The four week moving average is up 0.5 percent to 426.6 from 424.4 for the Purchase Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 48.4 percent of total applications from 48.1 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 20.1 from 20.4 percent of total applications from the previous week. The ARM share is at its lowest level since July 2003.