Mortgage Bankers Weekly Update : Mortgage Applications Decrease

Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of 2/17/2010

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) decreased 2.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.

Refinance Index: decreased 1.2 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4.0 percent from one week earlier.

Purchase Index: increased 1.0 percent compared with the previous week and was 18.4 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

Refinance Share of Mortgage Activity: decreased to 69.3 percent of total applications from 69.7 percent the previous week.

Arm Share: decreased to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent of total applications from the previous week.

MBA outlook: (Excerpted from mbaa.org)

The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 9.47 percent of all loans outstanding as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, down 17 basis points from the third quarter of 2009, and up 159 basis points from one year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Associations (MBA) National Delinquency Survey.

We are likely seeing the beginning of the end of the unprecedented wave of mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures that started with the subprime defaults in early 2007, continued with the meltdown of the California and Florida housing markets due to overbuilding and the weak loan underwriting that supported that overbuilding, and culminated with a recession that saw 8.5 million people lose their jobs, said Jay Brinkmann, MBAs chief economist.

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