Seesaw Effect in Mortgage Application Data

Depending how you looked at it, there was good news and not-good news to be found in the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending Sept 9, with across the board increases in all levels of activity.

The Market Composite Index increased by a solid 4.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. However, on an unadjusted basis, the index crashed 17 percent compared with the previous week. Likewise, the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index soared by nine percent from one week earlier, but the unadjusted Purchase Index plummeted 15 percent compared with the previous week, although it was either percent higher than the same week one year ago. And adding to the seesaw effect was the refi market: The Refinance Index increased two percent from the previous week, but the refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 62.9 percent of total applications from 64.0 percent the previous week.

At least there was consistent news out of the federal home loan programs: the FHA share of total applications increased to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent the week prior, while the VA share of total applications increased to 12.0 percent from 11.9 percent and the USDA share of total applications became unstuck from its state of stagnation to increase to 0.7 percent from the 0.6 percent level it held for the past few weeks.