A slight increase in the number of people applying to refinance their mortgages wasn’t enough to offset a decline in applications for a purchase-money loan.
A seasonally adjusted 2 percent decline from one week previous was recorded for the Market Composite Index for the week that ended on April 14.
Even foregoing any seasonal adjustments, the index — a measure of retail residential loan application volume — was still down 2 percent from the prior week.
The Mortgage Bankers Association announced the index Wednesday as part of its
Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, which reportedly covers more than three-quarters of all applications.
Applications for refinances inched up less than a percent from the week ended April 7. At 42.4 percent, refinance share widened from 41.6 percent the prior week. But the share was nowhere near the 55.4 percent level as of the same week last year.
People applying for loans to finance home purchases completed a seasonally adjusted 3 percent fewer applications during the latest seven-day period. Even without considering seasonal factors, the Purchase Index was down 3 percent
from a week earlier and 1 percent lower than a year earlier.
FHA share widened to 11.0 percent from 10.7 percent the prior week and 10.6 percent a year prior. VA share, meanwhile, thinned to 11.1 percent from 11.3 percent and has narrowed significantly from 12.6 percent twelve months earlier.
Interest rates on jumbo mortgages were 7 basis points lower than rates on conforming loans. The jumbo-conforming spread
widened from a negative 4 BPS in the last report and a negative 6 BPS in the report from the same week the previous year.
The share of activity that was for
adjustable-rate mortgages was 8.4 percent. ARM share was slightly more narrow than 8.5 percent in the last report but much wider than 5.0 percent the same week in 2016.
