The Changing Market and Mortgage Applications

Apps upWASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2005) — The Mortgage Bankers Association(MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the weekending December 2. The Market Composite Index — a measure of mortgage loanapplication volume was 656.7 -- an increase of 5.2 percent on a seasonallyadjusted basis from 624.1, one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, theIndex increased 46.8 percent compared with the previous week but was down6.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index increased by 4.0 percent to 495.1from 476.2 the previous week whereas the Refinance Index increased by 7.0percent to 1596.4 from 1484.3 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjustedindex activity includes the Conventional Index, which increased 5.1percent to 981.8 from 933.8 the previous week, and the Government Index,which increased 6.6 percent to 114.0 from 106.9 the previous week.The four week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index isdown 0.2 percent to 643.5 from 644.6. The four week moving average is up1.6 percent to 480.4 from 473.0 for the Purchase Index while this averageis down 3.1 percent to 1591.8 from 1642.4 for the Refinance Index.The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 41.0 percent oftotal applications from 39.1 percent the previous week. Theadjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 33.1 percentof total applications from 33.0 percent the previous week.The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgagesincreased to 6.32 percent from 6.20 percent on week earlier, with pointsincreasing to 1.30 from 1.17 (including the origination fee) for 80percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgagesincreased to 5.84 percent from 5.72 percent, with points increasing to1.37 from 1.26 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.49percent from 5.39 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 0.91from 0.96 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.**SPECIAL NOTES**The survey covers approximately 50 percent of all U.S. retail residentialmortgage originations, and has been conducted weekly since 1990.Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts. Baseperiod and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.------------------------------