Home Mortgage Applications Rise Slightly For Week
Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose last week, driven by an increase in mortgage refinancing, an industry trade group said on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, in its weekly, seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, said that home loan applications crept up by 1.5 percent to 639.8 in the week ending February 9.
The group’s seasonally adjusted refinancing index increased by 4.5 percent to 2,031.7, overshadowing the corresponding 1 percent drop in the MBA’s seasonally adjusted home purchase loan index to 400.7.
All three measures posted slim declines on a seasonally adjusted four-week moving average, but were above year-ago levels.
The four-week average for the market index, which measures mortgage application volume, was 1.1 percent lower at 628.1, but up from 574.1 in the same week a year ago.
The purchasing index average was down 2.4 percent on a four-week moving average (tracked to avoid volatile week-to-week swings) at 404.0 and up slightly from 391.7 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the mortgage refinance index was off 0.2 percent at 1,941.0 on a four-week average, but well above a reading of 1,636.7 in the same week a year ago.
Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate home loans, excluding origination fees, were only slightly changed at 6.24 percent, compared with the 6.23 percent total the prior week, according to the MBA.
ADJUSTABLE-RATE MORTGAGE SHARE DROPS
The adjustable-rate mortgage share of applications slipped to 21.2 percent from 22.3 percent, while the overall refinancing share of total home loan requests was unchanged at 46.1 percent.
The MBA’s survey covers about half of all U.S. retail residential mortgage loans. Respondents include mortgage lenders, commercial banks and thrifts.
More signs about the health of the housing market, which drove the economy for most of this decade before starting to fade in the summer of 2005, will come from the National Association of Home Builders on Thursday and the Commerce Department on Friday.
January housing starts and building permits will be reported on Friday, a day after the U.S. home builder sentiment reading for February.
Price cuts, lower mortgage rates and incentives have helped builders trim their inventories of unsold homes, but the supply has been burdensome, according to industry analysts.
SOURCE: Reuters