After increasing slightly to end July, mortgage applications once again took a dive for the first week of August.
[IMAGE]According to the ""Mortgage Bankers Association's"":http://mbaa.org/default.htm (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, loan application volume decreased 4.7 percent (seasonally adjusted) for the [COLUMN_BREAK]
week ending August 9. On an unadjusted basis, applications were down 5 percent.
The survey's Refinance Index also declined, dropping 4 percent week-over-week. The refinance share of mortgage activity was 63 percent, unchanged from the previous week.
On the purchase side, applications were down a seasonally adjusted 5 percent, MBA reported. Unadjusted, application volume fell 6 percent but was 4 percent higher than the same week in 2012.
The association also noted that the government share of purchase applications was 29 percent, well below the long-term average of 38 percent.
According to MBA's measures, the average contract interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.56 percent--down from 4.61 percent--with points falling to 0.39 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value loans.