Econintersect: Mortgage applications increased 7.8% week-over-week for the week ending May 13, 2011. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey on an unadjusted basis increased 7.1%.
The Refinance Index increased 13.2 percent from the previous week and is at its highest level since the week ending December 10, 2010. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3.2 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index decreased 3.3 percent compared with the previous week and was 1.7 percent lower than the same week one year ago.
Econintersect believes mortgage applications are no longer predicitive of home sales as over 1/3 of the current home purchases are not financed. According to said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research:
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now 53 basis points below its 2011 peak, and has decreased for five straight weeks. Over this five week span, the refinance index has increased by about 33 percent. Refinance application volumes remain about 50 percent below the most recent peak last October.
The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 66.7 percent of total applications from 63.1 percent the previous week. This is the largest refinance share observed since late January. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 6.3 percent from 6.5 percent of total applications from the previous week.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.60 percent from 4.67 percent, with points decreasing to 0.94 from 1.10 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. This is the lowest 30-year rate recorded in the survey since the end of November 2010. The effective rate also decreased from last week.