Econintersect: This is a fairly quiet week for real estate. Over the USA’s Labor Day weekend, Econintersect published two real estate price reviews – Has Stimulus Distorted Housing Bottom? and No Housing Bottom in Sight. Neither article offers much hope that the home price crisis is over.
No major release of housing data is scheduled this week.
The Mortage Bankers Association reported mortgage applications Purchase Index increased 0.2% from one week earlier for the week ending 02September2011. The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased 6.3% from the previous week. Mike Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics stated:
Heading into the Labor Day weekend, the 30-year rate was at its second lowest level in the history of our survey (the low point was reached last October), and the 15-year rate marked a new low in our survey. Despite these rates however, refinance application volume fell for the third straight week, and is more than 35 percent below levels at this time last year. Purchase application volume remains relatively flat at extremely low levels, close to lows last seen in 1996.
The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.23% from 4.32%, with points decreasing to 1.04 from 1.29. This is the second lowest 30-year rate recorded in the survey. Hat tip for the graph below to Calculated Risk.
source: MBA, Calculated Risk
