Even after accounting for seasonal factors, fewer prospective borrowers applied for a mortgage in the final week of last year. Applications for loans to finance a home purchase fared better than refinances.
During the seven days that ended on Dec. 29, the Market Composite Index declined 3 percent from two weeks earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Without seasonal adjustments, the index, a measure of retail residential loan application volume, plummeted 42 percent from the week ended Dec. 15.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, which derived the statistics from its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, reported a 7 percent decrease from the last report for refinance applications. The share of total applications that was refinance widened to 52.0 percent from 51.8 percent one week earlier but was trimmed from 52.2 percent one year earlier.
A seasonally adjusted 1 percent rise from the report two weeks ago was recorded for purchase-money applications. But applications for home purchase financing plunged 40 percent without seasonal adjustments, though there was a 3 percent increase from the week ended Dec. 30, 2016.
FHA share was 10.4 percent, a little more than 10.3 percent the preceding week but less than 11.6 percent the same-seven days in 2016.
Similarly, VA share widened to 11.2 percent from 10.6 percent but thinned from 12.3 percent the same week in the previous year.
Applications for adjustable-rate mortgages made up 5.3 percent of total applications,
less than 5.6 percent two weeks prior and 5.4 percent a year prior.
Jumbo interest rates were 12 basis points lower than conforming rates compared to just 4 BPS less the previous week. The spread was only a negative 2 BPS twelve months earlier.
