WASHINGTON – For the week ending June 27, mortgage applications rose slightly from the week before, led by an increase in refinancing attempts, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today in its weekly report.
The group’s seasonally adjusted Market Composite Index – a measure of mortgage loan application volume – rose to 477.7 points, a 3.6-percent increase from the 461.3-point level of the preceding week. The index was down 22.8 percent from the same week a year earlier, the trade group reported.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
Learn More
The MBA’s seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased, rising 2.8 percent to 342.8 points from 333.4 points the preceding week. The Refinance Index also increased, rising 4.7 percent to 1,269.2 points last week from 1,212.2 points in the week ended June 27.
Refinancing attempts accounted for 36.8 percent of all mortgage applications last week, a small increase from their 36.3-percent share in the week ended June 20. Adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) held steady at 8.5 percent of total applications, down from 9.7 percent in the week ending June 13 and 10.3 percent in the week ending June 6.
The average contract interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.33 percent from 6.39 percent the week before. The average rate for a 15-year mortgage dropped to 5.9 percent from 5.95 percent. But the average rate for a one-year ARM rose, to 7.14 percent from 7.09 percent the week before.
Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Mass., told Bloomberg News that buyers are expecting home prices to continue dropping. “We still have a very large backlog of unsold homes for sale,” he said.
The MBA survey, compiled each week since 1990, covers about half of all retail residential mortgage originations nationwide.
The Mortgage Bankers Association is a trade group representing the real estate finance industry. Its 3,000 member companies include mortgage firms, commercial banks, thrifts, life insurance companies and others. Additional information, including the MBA’s Weekly Application Survey, is available at www.mortgagebankers.org.
