by Calculated Risk on 7/24/2013 07:03:00 AM

From the MBA: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Refinance Index decreased 1 percent from the previous week driven by a 12 percent drop in the Government Refinance index while the Conventional Refinance index rose by 2 percent. The Refinance Index is at the lowest level since July 2011. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 2 percent from one week earlier.
...
The refinance share of mortgage activity remained unchanged at 63 percent of total applications.
...
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,500 or less) decreased to 4.58 percent from 4.68 percent, with points decreasing to 0.40 from 0.42 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value ratio (LTV) loans.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

The first graph shows the refinance index.

With 30 year mortgage rates above 4.5%, refinance activity has fallen sharply, decreasing in 10 of the last 11 weeks.

This index is down 55% over the last eleven weeks.

The second graph shows the MBA mortgage purchase index.  The 4-week average of the purchase index has generally been trending up over the last year (but down over the last several weeks), and the 4-week average of the purchase index is up about 6% from a year ago.