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The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 22. The Market Composite Index - a measure of mortgage loan application volume - was 754.3, a decrease of 5.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 801.1 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 5.6 percent compared with the previous week but was up 20.7 percent compared with the same week one year earlier. Bob Walters, Chief Economist of Loans, had this to say: "Economic growth and low long-term mortgage rates are powering the housing industry to record numbers, as also evidenced by the strong existing home sales report we saw for June. Therefore a dip in first-time mortgages and refinances is somewhat unexpected. However, long-term rates are beginning to trend up, so the window of opportunity to 'Dis-ARM' into a fixed-rate is closing for homeowners. As consumers realize this, we could at the very least see the number of refinance applications steadily increase in the weeks to come."
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