Mortgage Apps Up 45 Percent

The ""Mortgage Bankers Association"":http://www.mortgagebankers.org (MBA) today released its ""Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey"":http://www.mortgagebankers.org/NewsandMedia/PressCenter/67707.htm for the week ending February 13, 2009. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 45.7 percent from one week earlier and is up 5.2 percent compared with the same week in 2008.
The association reported that the Refinance Index increased 64.3 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 9.1 percent. The Conventional Purchase Index rose 10.9 percent, while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) was up 5.5 percent.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 74.2 percent of total applications from 66.7 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 1.7 percent from 2.5 percent of total applications the week before.
According to MBA's study, covering approximately 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRMs) decreased to 4.99 percent from 5.19 percent, for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
The average mortgage rate for 15-year FRMs decreased to 4.66 percent, down from 5.00 percent. And the average rate for one-year ARMs decreased from 6.22 percent to 6.10 percent.