by Calculated Risk on 3/14/2007 09:19:00 AM

Note: With the rapid changes in the mortgage industry, this survey might be misleading. See my comments last month on MBA Purchase Applications.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Applications Increase in Latest MBA Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 690.5, an increase of 2.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 671.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 3.2 percent compared with the previous week and was up 19.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 3.5 percent to 2312.2 from 2234.2 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2.2 percent to 414.3 from 405.3 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates were mixed:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.03 percent from 6.04 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.86 from 5.79 percent ...

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages since January 2002. The four week moving average is up 0.9 percent to 400.6 from 397.2 for the Purchase Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 46.2 percent of total applications from 46.1 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 21.9 from 21.4 percent of total applications from the previous week.