Overall mortgage application volume was down from a week earlier. But compared to a year earlier, applications for home-purchase loans have ascended 7 percent.
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seasonally adjusted 2 percent drop from the previous seven-day period was recorded for the Market Composite Index for the week ended Oct. 6.
The index, a measure of retail residential loan application volume, was still down 2 percent from the week ended Sept. 29 when seasonal factors are ignored.
Application metrics were derived from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey. The survey reportedly covers more than three-quarters of all applications.
Refinance applications fell 4 percent as refinance share continued to thin to 49.0 percent from 50.1 percent in last week’s report. Refinance share has been slashed from 62.4 percent in the week ended
Oct. 7, 2016.
Applications for loans to finance a home purchase were mostly unchanged from the prior report with and without seasonal adjustments. But purchase-money activity has improved by 7 percent from a year prior.
The share of applicants who applied for a loan guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs was 10.6 percent, more than the 10.3 percent who applied for a mortgage insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
A bigger share of prospective borrowers opted for an adjustable-rate mortgage, with ARM share widening to 6.6 percent from
6.0 percent. ARM share was just 4.1 percent during the same-seven days last year.
Jumbo interest rates were 5 basis points lower than conforming rates, wider than 3 BPS in the last report.
Jumbo rates were 1 basis point lower than conforming rates the same week in 2016.
