Although originators slightly boosted their weekly intake of applications for home purchase financing, waning refinance activity more than offset the gain.
There were 3 percent fewer loan applications completed by mortgage borrowers in the week ended March 11 than
were completed one week earlier.
That was according to the latest Market Composite Index. The seasonally adjusted index is a weekly measure of retail mortgage application volume.
The index is part of the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The trade group says the survey covers more than 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications.
Excluding adjustments for seasonality, the index was still off 3 percent.
Driving down the index were applications for refinances, which tumbled a seasonally adjusted 6 percent from the week ended March 4.
Refinance share was 55.0 percent — the thinnest share since August 2015. In the previous report, refinance share was 56.7 percent.
But MBA reported that purchase financing applications were up — though less than 1 percent.
The small bump, however, was enough to push purchase activity to the highest level since January.
Without any seasonal adjustments, applications for purchase-money loans were 1 percent higher than a week earlier and a third higher than a year earlier.
Adjustable-rate mortgage share was 4.9 percent, more narrow than
5.2 percent the previous week.
Applications for Federal Housing Administration-insured loans accounted for 11.7 percent of total activity, thinning from 12.0 percent the prior week.
Department of Veterans Affairs-guaranteed mortgage applications represented 12.3 percent of total applications. VA share diminished from 12.6 percent in the last report.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were eight basis points less than conforming rates. The jumbo conforming spread was no different than in the last report.
