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Mortgage Requests Fell Last Week
Reuters
Wednesday, February 4, 2004; 8:34 AM
By Aleksandrs Rozens
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. applications for home loans fell last week amid a slight rise in mortgage rates, but lending remained vibrant, according to an industry survey of mortgage bankers released on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its market index, a measure of weekly mortgage activity, fell 1.5 percent in the week ended Jan. 30 to 855.7.
At the same time, the trade group's purchase index, a gauge of new requests for loans to buy homes, fell 1.7 percent to 444.0.
"It (mortgage application activity) has increased in the last several weeks because rates have come down in the last several weeks. But, it is not anywhere near last year's record level," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial on Tuesday before the data was reported.
MBA's refinancing index, which has risen in recent weeks, slipped 1.4 percent to 3,250.6 from the previous week's 3,296.7 as 30-year mortgage rates rose 0.05 percentage point last week to average 5.63 percent.
"The refinance activity has been amazingly resilient," said Amy Crews Cutts, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac, on Tuesday, "What we will see is that if rates rise, the refi share of applications will fall off slightly."
Last week, refinancings accounted for over 50 percent of the week's activity.
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