The Mortgage Bankers Association [1] (MBA) reported a 2.7 percent decrease in mortgage application volume from a week earlier in its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey [2] for the week ending August 8.
The latest week-over-week decrease in the Market Composite Index (which tracks volume of mortgage loan applications and includes separate components for refinances and purchase loans) is seasonally adjusted; unadjusted, the Index saw a 3 percent week-over-week decline.
The Refinance Index and the Purchase Index both fell to their lowest levels in months. The Refinance Index dropped 4 percent from the previous week to its lowest level since May, and the seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index saw a 1 percent week-to-week decline down to its lowest level since February.
Unadjusted, the Purchase Index dropped by 2 percent from the previous week and was down 10 percent from the same week at this time last year.
The Government Purchase Index, seasonally adjusted, dropped 1 percent from the previous week, which pushed it down to the lowest it has been in seven years.
Refinance share decreased by 1 percentage point week-over-week, from 55 percent to 54 percent, while the percentage of total mortgage applications for the adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity was flat 8 percent.