The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending Nov. 5, 2010. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 5.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 5.4 percent compared with the previous week.
The Refinance Index increased six percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 5.5 percent from one week earlier. This is the third consecutive weekly increase in purchase applications. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 3.1 percent compared with the previous week and was 33.9 percent higher than the same week one year ago. The conventional purchase index increased 5.4 percent to its highest level since May of this year, on a seasonally adjusted basis. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the conventional purchase index was at the highest level observed since early October.
"Although mortgage rates were little changed following the Federal Reserve's decision to purchase $600 billion of Treasury bonds over the next eight months, mortgage applications increased last week," said Michael Fratantoni, MBA's vice president of research and economics. "The increases in purchase applications we have seen over the past couple of weeks align with the better than expected news from October's employment report and other data indicating some improvement in the economy's growth prospects. Refinance applications increased as rates continued to hover near record lows."
The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 1.9 percent. The four week moving average is up 1.0 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is down 2.6 percent for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 81.7 percent of total applications from 81.3 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 5.3 percent from 5.4 percent of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages remained unchanged at 4.28 percent, with points decreasing to 1.05 from 1.07 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. The effective rate decreased from last week.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate remained unchanged at 3.64 percent, with points also remaining unchanged at 1.08 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The effective rate increased from last week.
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