Mortgage Applications Increase in Latest MBA Weekly Survey

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 10, 2007.  The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 678.7, an increase of 3.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 656.5 one week earlier.  On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 2.7 percent compared with the previous week and was up 20.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 2.6 percent to 1929.6 from 1881.1 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 3.9 percent to 464.9 from 447.4 one week earlier.  On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index increased 2.8 percent to 500.4 from 486.9 the previous week.  The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index increased 3.1 percent to 987.9 from 958.5 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 6.7 percent to 163.2 from 152.9 the previous week.

"Recent upheavals in the mortgage industry may be temporarily increasing the level of retail application activity at the large lenders that participate in the MBA survey rather than representing a system-wide increase," said Doug Duncan, MBA`s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research and Business Development.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 1.9 percent to 637.8 from 626.0.  The four week moving average is up 1.1 percent to 438.3 from 433.7 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 3.0 percent to 1806.9 from 1753.9 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity remained unchanged at 39.9 percent of total applications. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 21.0 from 22.5 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.45 percent from 6.41 percent, with points decreasing to 1.54 from 1.62 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.19 from 6.16 percent, with points decreasing to 1.16 from 1.18 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.81 from 5.69 percent, with points increasing to 1.11 from 1.09 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

**SPECIAL NOTES**

The survey covers approximately 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage originations, and has been conducted weekly since 1990.  Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.  Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.

Aleis Stokes                       Carolyn Kemp
(202) 557-2741                     (202) 557-2727
astokes@mortgagebankers.org         ckemp@mortgagebankers.org