Weekly mortgage applications fall

09.17.09
By Lewis Green

Although Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke noted this week that the recession is "very likely over," it seems that Americans are less likely to look for a home loan as the Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications fell last week.

According to the MBA, applications for new home loans and refinances fell a seasonally adjusted 8.6 percent last week. This decrease continued an overall up-and-down trend for mortgage applications, which had been up 17 percent the previous week.

Last week's application drop included a 10.3 percent fall in applications for new mortgages and a 7.4 percent decrease in refinances. The decrease comes after the previous week's Purchase Index increased 9.5 percent while the Refinance Index rose 22.5 percent - the largest weekly increase since March.

The MBA also reported that refinances made up the majority of mortgages applied for last week as 61 percent of all mortgage applications were for refinances - up slightly from the 59.8 percent the week prior.

Along with the see-sawing of mortgage applications has been rise and fall of interest rates over the last few months. According to the MBA, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages saw their rates increase from 5.02 percent to 5.08 percent last week after falling 0.13 percentage points the previous week.

However, 15-year fixed-rate mortgages saw their rates continue to decline as they fell to 4.41 percent last week, marking a 0.16 percentage point fall over the last two weeks.

Figures from the MBA come days after RealtyTrac reported that foreclosures were down slightly in August, but still remain at record highs across the country with 358,471 foreclosure filings being reported across the country last month. This means one out of every 357 properties received a foreclosure filing during August.

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Applications for home loans fell last week