Mortgage Apps Increase, Including Refi Activity

The Mortgage Bankers Association said this morning that mortgage applications during the week ended October 5, 2007 were up 2.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier, and up 8.6 percent from volume in the same week one year ago.

It also appears that refinance activity jumped a bit:

The Refinance Index increased 2.7 percent to 2003.2 from 1950.4 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 2.1 percent to 420.2 from 411.4 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index increased 2.2 percent to 401.9 from 393.3 the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index increased 3.4 percent to 934.8 from 904.2 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index decreased 5.3 percent to 180.5 from 190.6 the previous week.

I’m not sure if the Government Index includes FHA applications — if so, it would be surprising to see application activity dip so strongly in that area given the recent hullabaloo around the FHASecure program.

Refinance share edged upward to 46.2 percent of total applications, the MBA reported, while ARM share (adjustable rate mortgage application activity) dropped to 13.6 percent of total applications.