by Calculated Risk on 9/06/2006 12:16:00 AM

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports: Home Purchase Applications Rise

NOTE: I usually post the MBA headline - this headline compares to the previous week - and that week was the lowest level of activity since November 2003. Another headline could have been "Purchase Activity off 26% from comparable week last year."

Click on graph for larger image.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 566.3, an increase of 1.8 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 556.5 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 0.4 percent compared with the previous week but was down 26.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index increased by 3.7 percent to 389.7 from 375.9 the previous week and the Refinance Index decreased by 0.9 percent to 1594.7 from 1609.2 one week earlier.

Mortgage rates decreased:

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 6.31 percent from 6.39 percent ...

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.97 percent from 6.06 percent ...

Change in mortgage applications from one year ago (from Dow Jones):

Percent Change in Number of Applications
Applications	Change from one year ago
Total	-26.1%
Purchase	-21.1%
Refi	-32.3%
Fixed Rate	-25.8%
ARM	-26.9%

Purchase activity is off 26.1% from the comparable week last year. The slight increase in purchase activity this week, was from the lowest level since November 2003.

This graph shows the Purchase Index and the 4 and 12 week moving averages.
Note: Scale does not start at zero to better show changes.

Purchase activity has clearly moved lower again in recent weeks.