The U.S. mortgage applications
last week declined slightly with including an adjustment from the
Thanksgiving holiday, said the latest Weekly Mortgage Applications
Survey released Wednesday by the U.S. Mortgage Bankers Association
(MBA).
The association said that the Market Composite Index of U.S.
mortgage applications, a measure of mortgage loan application
volume, dipped 0.9 percent in the week ending Nov. 23, 2012 on a
seasonally adjusted basis from the previous week.
The Refinance Index fell 2 percent from the previous week, with
its share of mortgage activity holding unchanged at 81 percent of
total applications. While the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index
advanced 3 percent from a week earlier.
The average contract interest rates for 30-year and 15-year both
remained steady at 3.36 percent and 2.89 percent, respectively,
hovering near the lowest levels in history.
The record low mortgage rates have been playing as an important
incentive to house refinancing and buying. With constant modest
improvement recently, the U.S. housing crash is said to have reached
the bottom. However, many economists hold that the market still
needs years to recover entirely as the bottom will be prolonged.
