by Calculated Risk on 6/11/2008 10:18:00 AM

It appears the MBA Purchase Index might be useful again. Note: the index wasn't useful when lenders were going out of business because of the method used to calculated the index.


The MBA reports that the Purchase Index increased 12.8 percent to 376.2 from 333.6 one week earlier. The four week moving average (removes the weekly noise) declined, and is at the lowest level since early 2003. Because of the changes to the index, we can't compare directly to 2003, but clearly the index is weak.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index, and four week and twelve week moving averages.

Although we can't compare directly to earlier periods because of the changes in the index, this does suggest that sales of homes are continuing to decline.