by Calculated Risk on 10/11/2006 12:26:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Mortgage Applications Decrease

Click on graph for larger image.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 599.1, a decrease of 5.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 633.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5.3 percent compared with the previous week and was down 13.3 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Refinance Index decreased by 5.8 percent to 1857 from 1970.8 the previous week and the Purchase Index decreased by 5.3 percent to 383.3 from 404.6 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates increased slightly:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 6.27 percent from 6.24 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 5.88 percent from 5.86 percent ...

This second graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages since January 2002.

This is the first week of loan activity after the New Nontraditional Mortgage Guidance was released. It will be interesting to see if the guidance has any impact on applications over the next few weeks.