Washington, DC, May 24, 2006--The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 19.
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 552.6, a decrease of 6.0 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 588.0 one week earlier.
On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.2 percent compared with the previous week and was down 23.0 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.
The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 7.1 percent to 396.4 from 426.7 the previous week whereas the Refinance Index decreased by 4.3 percent to 1480.5 from 1546.8 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity includes the Conventional Index, which decreased 5.9 percent to 818.2 from 869.7 the previous week, and the Government Index, which decreased 7.2 percent to 109.8 from 118.3 the previous week.
The four week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index is up 0.2 percent to 574.9 from 573.9. The four week moving average is up 0.4 percent to 418.2 from 416.5 for the Purchase Index, while this average is down 0.1 percent to 1505.1 from 1507.3 for the Refinance Index.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 35.7 percent of total applications from 35.0 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 30.5 percent of total applications from 29.9 percent the previous week. The ARM share is at its highest since week ending January 27, 2006.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.61 percent from 6.66 percent, with points remaining the same at 1.17 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.23 percent from 6.26 percent, with points decreasing to 1.16 from 1.17 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs decreased to 6.02 percent from 6.07 percent, with points decreasing to 0.87 from 0.89 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.
