Housing Bubble
Mortgage demand led down by lower refinancing applications
The Market Composite Index of mortgage loan applications, a measure of mortgage loan applications for purchases and refinancings, for the week ending November 22 decreased 5.8 percent to 1131.0 on a seasonally-adjusted basis from 1200.2 the previous week, according to the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey of the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA), which was released today. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.9 percent but was up 79.8 percent compared to the same week a year earlier.
The MBA seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased to 350.2 from 345.0 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Refinance Index decreased to 5672.3 from 6174.1 the previous week. Last week marked the eighteenth consecutive week that the Refinance Index has been above 4000, and the Refinance Index was above 5000 for thirteen of those seventeen weeks. Other seasonally adjusted index activity included the Conventional Index, which decreased to 1639.4 from 1735.1 the previous week. The Government Index decreased to 282.5 from 307.4 the previous week.
Refinancing activity represented 76.6 percent of total applications, decreasing from 77.6 percent the previous week . The increased interest rate for 30-year fixed rate mortgages to 6.00 percent from 5.94 percent the previous week was a likely reason that REFI applications were down, although there was a rise of 1.5 percent in mortgage applications to buy homes.
