RISMEDIA, August 14, 2008-The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 8, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 425.9, a decrease of 1.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 432.6 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 2.2% compared with the previous week and was down 36.9% compared with the same week one year earlier.The Refinance Index decreased 4.2% to 1074.6 from previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index remained unchanged. The Conventional Purchase Index decreased 1.2% while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 2.9%.
The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 5.2%. The four week moving average Purchase Index is down 3.4%, while this average is down 7.9% for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 35.2% of total applications from 35.9% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 7.3 from 6.9% of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.57% from 6.41%, with points increasing to 1.14 from 1.13 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.17% from 6.02%, with points increasing to 1.06 from 1.02 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 7.15% from 7.17%, with points increasing to 0.38 from 0.36 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
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