A slight increase in interest rates brought mortgage application volumes down in the Mortgage Bankers Association's [1] (MBA) latest survey.
The group reported Wednesday that total application activity, including purchase and refinance numbers, fell 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending January 23. The decline also included an adjustment for the Martin Luther King holiday.
The drop accompanied a small increase in fixed mortgage rates. According to MBA, the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate conforming loan was 3.83 percent last week compared to 3.80 percent the week prior.
Refinance demand, which tends to follow rate movements, fell 5 percent week-over-week in response, dragging the refinance share of total applications down to 72 percent from 74 percent previously.
Meanwhile, purchase mortgage volumes slipped just 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, hovering about 1 percent higher than where they were around this time last year.