Mortgage applications nationwide fall 3.6%

WASHINGTON – Mortgage applications nationwide fell back last week from the previous week’s 2007 high, as both purchase and refinance applications declined, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.
The trade group’s Market Composite Index – a measure of mortgage loan application volume – fell 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted 681.7 points in the week ended Nov. 16, after rising 5.5 percent the week before.
The MBA’s seasonally adjusted Refinance Index fell 5.0 percent to 2,199.9 points after rising 6.4 percent in the week ended Nov. 9 to its highest level since September 2005. The Purchase Index fell 2.0 percent to 424.1 points, after rising 4.8 percent the week before.
Refinancing accounted for 50.3 percent of loan applications last week, up slightly from the previous week’s 50.2 percent. Adjustable-rate mortgages increased to 15.8 percent of total applications from 15.5 percent in the week ended Nov. 9.
Interest rates fell, with the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage costing borrowers 6.18 percent, down from 6.19 percent the week before, while the rate on the average one-year ARM dipped to 5.71 percent from the previous week’s 5.77 percent.
Analysts noted, however, that the MBA surveys only retail lenders, who may have seen an increase in business as many wholesale brokers have closed their doors.
“The housing market is flat on its back,” Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pa., told Bloomberg News. “Housing is likely to restrict growth again this quarter.”
The Mortgage Bankers Association, based in Washington, D.C., 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.
The MBA’s Weekly Application Survey – conducted each week since 1990 – covers about 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage originations. (The base period and base value for all indexes is March 16, 1990 = 100.) Additional information is available at www.mortgagebankers.org.