Mortgage Applications Keep Kicking The Can

It's not entirely clear if it's a can or the proverbial bucket.  All we know is that mortgage applications have been kicking it.  There's no great way to make the news interesting now that loan volume has done what anyone would have expected it to do, given the the rapid rise in rates over the past 6 weeks.

Up until that point, there had been a noticeable uptick in refinance applications.  That uptick has now been fully erased, although this week didn't decline nearly as much as the past several.

In the bigger picture, that uptick wasn't anything special considering the starting point was as low as it's been in decades.

To whatever extent refi apps have been historically muted, purchase applications have been reliably boring.  Little changes on that front from week to week.

The bigger picture is more interesting here, perhaps, as it shows the rapid shift from a longstanding trend of steady improvement to the new reality of exceptionally light purchase activity.

Other highlights include:

• Refis accounted for 39.9% of the total, same as last week
• FHA accounted for 16.0%, up from 15.5%
• VA accounted for 13.3%, up from 12.5%
• Survey rates were up to 6.86 from 6.81 (30yr fixed)
• origination/points decreased to 0.6 from 0.68
• FHA rates fell to 6.69 from 6.75
• Jumbo rates rose to 7.00% from 6.98%