MBA Mortgage Rates and Applications

The Mortgage Bankers Association went missing yesterday, a day when they usually release information on contract mortgage rates and mortgage application activity. We caught up with them today and here is the report.

MBA reported that, during the week ended October 20, the average contract interest rate for the 30 year fixed-rate mortgage was up 3 basis points to 6.36 percent with points, including the origination fee, dropping from 1.15 to 1.04. Freddie Mac had, as we reported yesterday, pegged the 30 year rate at 6.36 points for the week.

MBA's survey had the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.03 percent, up from 6.01 percent the previous week with points down to 1.04 from 1.08. Freddie Mac reported the rate, based on its survey, at 6.06 percent with 0.5 points. The average rate for one-year ARMS increased three basis points to 5.97 percent with points increasing from 0.86 to 0.90. This was substantially higher than the 5.57 percent and 0.8 points reported by Freddie Mac.

Applications were up 0.5 percent on both a seasonally adjusted and unadjusted basis from the previous week and down 13 percent compared with applications at the same time in 2005.

Refinancing as a share of overall mortgage activity increased from 45 percent to 45.6 percent and adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 26.1 percent or total applications from 26.5 percent during the week ended October 13.