Mortgage Application Volume Fell 4.5%: MBA

Mortgage application volume contracted by 4.5 percent from the week before, according to the ""Mortgage Bankers Association"":http://www.mbaa.org/default.htm (MBA).

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The Market Composite Index, a measure of volume for loan applications, fell 3.6 percent

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on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the MBA's weekly survey.

Seasonally adjusted purchases declined by 2.9 percent from the week before and rose by 1.4 percent on an unadjusted basis.

The Refinance Index went down by 4.8 percent from the prior week, just as the refinance share of mortgage activity shrank to 80.1 percent of total application volume from 81.1 percent.

The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity declined from 5.4 percent of total volume to 5.3 percent.

The four-week moving average meanwhile fell marginally for the Market Index and by 3.21 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index. The average went up by less than 1 percent for the Refinance Index.

For January, total application volume from borrowers who chose to refinance came to 57.2 percent for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, 24.4 percent for 15-year loans, and 5.5 percent for ARMs.