The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending January 7 on Wednesday, finding the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 47.5 percent compared with the previous week, which included the New Year’s holiday. The Refinance Index increased 4.9 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3.7 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 41.9 percent compared with the previous week and was 10.5 percent lower than the same week one year ago. MBA also found the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 4.78 percent from 4.82 percent, with points decreasing to 0.91 from 1.10 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.
