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You Can Use Mortgage Requests Down, Rates Up
Reuters
Wednesday, January 28, 2004; 7:07 AM By Richard Leong
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans filed fewer mortgage requests last week
as a modest uptick in mortgage rates cooled the resurgence in loan demand seen
in the prior week, an industry trade group said on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its market index, a measure of weekly
mortgage activity, fell for the week ending Jan 23 by 5.2 percent to 868.9 as
average 30-year mortgage rates rose 3 basis points to 5.58 percent. That compares
with the previous week's 916.1, the highest level since the week ended Aug. 1.
The U.S. housing market has been a pillar of the economy, posting three
straight years of record sales, in spite of a recession. It has defied repeated
forecasts for a slowdown and has continued to exhibit unusual strength in the
early days of 2004. Sales of existing U.S. homes rose at a record annualized
pace to 6.47 million units in December, up 6.9 percent from November, the National
Association of Realtors said on Monday. For the full year 2003, U.S. homeowners
sold a record 6.1 million homes last year, beating 2002's total of 5.566 million
homes by 9.6 percent. Meanwhile, sales of new homes are expected to have
increased to an annual pace of 1.1 million units in December, up from November's
1.082 million annualized units, according to analysts polled by Reuters. The
government is slated to release December new home sales data at 10 a.m. EST (1500
GMT) The group's purchase index, which gauges new requests for home purchases,
fell 10 percent to 451.6. That compares with last week's 501.6, the highest level
reported since the group began its weekly survey in 1990. The Washington
trade group's refinancing index slipped 0.9 percent to 3,296.7 from previous week's
3,327.3, which was the highest level since the week ended Aug. 1.
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