Mortgage Apps Off Last Week

Washington, DC, August 1, 2007--The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 27.  The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 607.1, a decrease of 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis from 609.0 one week earlier.

On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 0.4% compared with the previous week and was up 14.2% compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 1.8% to 1724.1 from 1692.9 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 1.8% to 416.6 from 424.2 one week earlier. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index decreased 0.5% to 887.2 from 892.1 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 2.2% to 139.9 from 136.9 the previous week.

The four-week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 0.5% to 618.5 from 621.6.  The four-week moving average is down 1.2% to 435.3 from 440.5 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 0.5% to 1692.8 from 1683.6 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 39.4% of total applications from 38.5% the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 22.3 from 21.0% of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.50% from 6.59%, with points increasing to 1.66 from 1.55 (including the origination fee) for 80% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.20 from 6.24%, with points decreasing to 1.30 from 1.43 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.73 from 5.62%, with points decreasing to 1.12 from 1.13 (including the origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.