Reuters
Home loan demand drops to 4-month lowWednesday June 27, 11:03 am ET By Julie Haviv
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mortgage applications fell for a second straight week as interest rates remained near recent highs, an industry group said on Wednesday. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications, which includes both refinancing and purchasing loans, for the week ended June 22 fell 3.9 percent to 618.6 -- its lowest in four months. Applications, however, were 16.8 percent above their year-ago level. The four-week moving average of mortgage applications, which smooths the volatile weekly figures, was down 0.7 percent. James O'Sullivan, economist at UBS Securities in Stamford, Connecticut, still follows the indexes closely although he has noticed some dichotomies with other aspects of the housing market. "Clearly there has been a complete breakdown of the relationship between the purchase index and home sales in recent months, with home sales clearly falling in 2007 even as the purchase index shows it rising," he said. "The main story is the tightening of lending standards, so more applicants are being rejected and they're probably reapplying again," he said. "There was also a rush by some people to get their application in before rates headed higher and that has faded again." Many analysts view the housing market as a key factor in Federal Reserve interest rate policy. "Certainly housing has slowed enough to stop the Federal Reserve from tightening, but not enough to get them to ease," he said.
Rapidly rising defaults in the subprime mortgage market, which caters to borrowers with poor credit histories, has spurred a widespread tightening of underwriting standards by lenders.
Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.60 percent, unchanged from the previous week, but hovering around their highest since mid-2006. A year earlier the rates stood at 6.86 percent. The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase index, widely considered a timely gauge of U.S. home sales, fell 4.9 percent to 428.9. The index was above its year-ago level of 389.0, a rise of 10.3 percent. The group's seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications fell 2.5 percent to 1,731.6, its lowest this year. The index was up 27.7 percent from a year ago when the index stood at 1,356.0. The refinance share of applications increased to 38.7 percent from 38.0 percent the previous week. Fixed 15-year mortgage rates averaged 6.24 percent, down from 6.28 percent. ADJUSTABLE RATES DROP While rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have been on an upward trend, rates on other types of loans plunged last week. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) decreased to 5.51 percent from 5.70 percent. The ARM share of activity increased to 20.4 percent from 20.3 percent the previous week. Recent data from home sales, released by other institutions, suggest a delayed recovery for the hard-hit sector. The MBA's survey covers about 50 percent of U.S. retail residential loans. Respondents include mortgage banks, commercial banks and thrifts.