Mortgage Bankers Association: Weekly Application Update

Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of November 12, 2009

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) increased 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.

Refinance Index: increased 11.3 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 11.7 percent from one week earlier.

Purchase Index: decreased 13.7 percent compared with the previous week and was 21.6 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

Refinance Share of Mortgage Activity: increased to 71.5 percent of total applications from 66.1 percent the previous week. This refinance share is the highest share since May of this year, when the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was around 4.7 percent, close to the historical low of the survey.

ARM Refinance Activity: decreased to 5.5 percent from 6.1 percent of total applications from the previous week.

MBA outlook: (Excerpted from mbaa.org)The Federal Reserve will extend their MBS purchase program, a commitment to buy $1.25 trillion of mortgage securities, through the end of the first quarter of 2010. However the Fed has aslso announced that they are beginning to taper or pahse out the program.

The economy grew in the third quarter, but job losses continued, and the unemployment rate rose further, to 10.2% in October, the highest level since 1983.

1. Housing markets are beginning to slowly recover from the worst recession in decades, but are vulnerable to additional macroeconomic shock.
2. Existing homes sales increased by 9.4 percent in September to 5.57 million at a seasonally adjusted annual rate. However, new home sales fell by about 3.5 percent to 402,000 in September.
3. Inventories of unsold homes have declined, but remain very high. The months supply of existing homes for sale decreased from 9.3 months in August to 7.8 months in September. For new homes, the months supply was unchanged at 7.5 months in September.
4. Homeowner vacancy rates increased slightly in the third quarter to 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent in the second quarter. The long-term average for this rate is 1.7 percent, so there remains a substantial overhang of vacant units. Rental vacancy rates also increased in the third quarter, to 11.2 percent from 10.6 percent in the second quarter.

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