by Calculated Risk on 2/10/2010 07:28:00 AM

The MBA reports: Purchase Applications Decline in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ...

The Refinance Index increased 1.4 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 7.0 percent from one week earlier. ... The four week moving average is up 0.8 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is up 4.8 percent for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 69.7 percent of total applications from 69.2 percent the previous week. ...

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.94 percent from 5.01 percent, with points increasing to 1.06 from 1.04 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the MBA Purchase Index and four week moving average since 1990.

The decline in mortgage applications since October appears significant.

Refinance activity picked up slightly with the decline in mortgage rates.