by Calculated Risk on 9/04/2013 07:03:00 AM

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

Mortgage applications increased 1.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 30, 2013. ...

The Refinance Index increased 2 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 0.4 percent from one week earlier.
...
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 61 percent of total applications from 60 percent the previous week. ...

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,000 or less) decreased to 4.73 percent from 4.80 percent, with points decreasing to 0.33 from 0.41 (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.

The refinance index is down 63.4% over the last 17 weeks.  

The last time the index declined this far was in late 2010 and early 2011 when mortgage increased sharply with the Ten Year Treasury rising from 2.5% to 3.5%.  We've seen a similar increase over the last few months with the Ten Year Treasury yield up from 1.6% to over 2.85% today.

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 few months), and the 4-week average of the purchase index is up about 6.1% from a year ago.