Mortgage applications increased, with refinance share at an eight-month high, purchases up 5 percent from a year ago and adjustable-rate share wider again. But government share continued to thin.
A more than 3 percent seasonally adjusted increase in new home-loan applications
was recorded for the Market Composite Index during the seven days ended Sept. 1.
Without considering seasonal factors, the index, a measure of the pace of newly completed retail residential loan applications, was up 2 percent from the week ended Aug. 25.
The Mortgage Bankers Association, which divulged the index Wednesday in its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey report, said refinance applications improved by 5 percent.
Refinance share during the most-recent week, meanwhile, was 50.9 percent
— the widest it’s been since January. Refinance share was 49.4 percent the preceding week. But the share was much more narrow than 64.0 percent in the week ended Sept. 2, 2016.
MBA reported that applications for loans to finance the purchase of a single-family residence were up a seasonally adjusted 1 percent from the prior week. Without seasonal adjustments, purchase-money business retreated 1 percent but was 5 percent stronger than during the same seven days last year.
The share of applications for loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration declined to 9.6 percent from 9.7 percent in last week’s report. FHA share has not risen since the week ended July 28. But the category made up a bigger share than 9.5 percent in the report from this week last year.
Department of Veterans Affairs loan applications
accounted for 9.7 percent of total volume. VA share was cut from 10.0 percent the previous week and 11.9 percent one year prior. VA share has decreased each week since the week ended Aug. 4, 2017, when it was 10.7 percent.
Adjustable-rate mortgage share was 7.2 percent, thickening from 6.9 percent in the last report, when ARM share was also wider,
and much fatter than 4.3 percent in the report issued a year earlier.
The jumbo conforming spread thinned to 10 basis points from a negative 11 BPS in the last survey
but widened from a negative 2 BPS one year previous.
