Is the party over already? After rising for five consecutive weeks, mortgage application volume finally eased, according to the MBA.
Home loan application volume slipped 11 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis (-10.9 percent unadjusted) for the week ending April 10, but was still up 45.6 percent compared to the same week a year ago, at a time when business was dismal.
However, the MBA does not provide an adjustment for the Easter/Passover week, so the numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, assuming borrowers held off to observe these holidays.
Interestingly, purchase activity, which had been extremely soft already, decreased more than refinance activity, with declines in the low teens as refinancing slipped nearly 11 percent.
That pushed the refinance share of mortgage activity to 77.8 percent of applications from 77.9 percent the previous week, despite mild interest rate improvement.
The always popular 30-year fixed averaged 4.70 percent during the week, down from 4.73 percent, and the 15-year fixed also fell three basis points to 4.46 percent.
The one-year ARM slipped two basis points to 6.21 percent, which explains why the adjustable-rate mortgage share of applications remained at a meager 1.5 percent.
The MBA’s weekly survey covers roughly half of all retail residential mortgage applications, but does not factor out declined or multiple apps, which have surely risen in recent months.
Additionally, most of the loan applications out there are being originated via the retail channel, as wholesale is all but gone, so that must have a positive effect on the numbers as well.
(photo: sillygwailo)
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