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Economy in Brief
U.S. Mortgage Applications Decline as Interest Rates Continue to Increase
The MBA Mortgage Loan Applications Index declined 11.4%...
U.S. Consumer Confidence Increases in February
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index increased 2.7% (-31.1% y/y) to 91.3 during February...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Rise Markedly
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) House Price Index increased 1.1% m/m in December...
U.S. Energy Prices Surge as Texas Freeze Limits Supply
The price of regular gasoline strengthened to $2.63 per gallon (6.8% y/y) in the week ended February 22...
EMU HICP Makes First Year-on-Year Rise since July
The EMU headline rose by 0.8% in January, its first year-on-year gain in six months...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller March 30, 2005
The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications recovered 2.4% last week following the 9.4% drop during the prior period. The average level in March 4.8% below February.
Purchase applications rose 5.5% to the highest level of the year. Purchase applications in March are 6.2% higher than in February.
Applications to refinance added 2.0% to the 16.5% decline the prior week. The decline pulled the March average down 16.1% versus February.
The effective interest rate on a conventional 30-year mortgage rose further to 6.34% from 6.19% the prior week and from 5.85% averaged in February. The effective rate on a 15-year mortgage also rose to 5.96%.
The Mortgage Bankers Association surveys between 20 to 35 of the top lenders in the U.S. housing industry to derive its refinance, purchase and market indexes. The weekly survey accounts for more than 40% of all applications processed each week by mortgage lenders. Visit the Mortgage Bankers Association site here.
MBA Mortgage Applications (3/16/90=100) | 03/25/05 | 03/18/05 | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Market Index | 674.3 | 658.8 | -38.2% | 735.1 | 1,067.9 | 799.7 |
Purchase | 470.9 | 446.4 | 6.1% | 454.5 | 395.1 | 354.7 |
Refinancing | 1,857.2 | 1,894.2 | -61.8% | 2,366.8 | 4,981.8 | 3,388.0 |