July 29, 2010

Mortgage Bankers Weekly Update: Mortgage Applications Decrease

Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of  07/28/2010

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) decreased 4.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier

Refinance Index:  decreased 5.9 percent from the previous week.

Purchase Index: increased 2.0 percent from one week earlier and is the highest Purchase Index observed in the survey since the end of June
 
Refinance Share of Mortgage Activity: decreased to 78.0 percent of total applications from 79.4 percent the previous week.
Arm Share: i ncreased to 5.7 percent from 5.2 percent of total applications from the previous week.

MBA outlook:
(Excerpted from mbaa.org)

Federal Reserve policymakers have been increasingly clear that they will keep their target rate at exceptionally low levels for an extended period.  They have also made no moves to this point in terms of asset sales from their trillion dollar portfolio of mortgage backed securities.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Macs large buyouts of delinquent loans from MBS have substantially been completed by this point, so there are no longer large-scale purchases of MBS by unconventional buyers artificially constraining mortgage rates .
Purchase application data from MBAs Weekly Application Survey show no rebound in activity to date, with apps remaining at 13 year lows (15-year lows for conventional purchase mortgages).  As the pending home sales and housing starts numbers showed, this drop in applications clearly predicts similar sized drops in home sales over the next couple of months.

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1 comment:

Dom Casas said...

Those who are behind on their payments will need to consider the Home Affordable Modification program. In order to qualify for this program, the monthly payment on the mortgage must be equal to or more than 31 percent of the household’s gross monthly income, and the homeowner must not be able to afford the current mortgage payment due to a change in income or expenses.