by Calculated Risk on 1/17/2007 10:39:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Refinance Applications Increase and Purchase Applications Decrease

Click on graph for larger image.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 667.2, a decrease of 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 671.1 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 28.9 percent compared with the previous week and was up 9.8 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased by 6.3 percent to 2045.8 from 1923.8 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 7 percent to 439.7 from 472.8 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates increased:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.19 from 6.13 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.85 percent from 5.79 ...

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 0.2 percent to 427.4 from 426.6 for the Purchase Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 49.9 percent of total applications from 48.4 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 21.2 from 20.1 percent of total applications from the previous week.