Mortgage applications rise in U.S. housing market

Source: Xinhua | 2019-06-28

Mortgage applications edged up but purchase activity weakened in the United States, according to a report from Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Wednesday.
For the week ending June 21, MBA's market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, rose 1.3 percent from a week earlier.
"Markets last week reacted to a more dovish Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement and forecast, with Treasury yields falling after the meeting," said Joel Kan, associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting of MBA.
FOMC is the policy-making committee of the U.S. Federal Reserve. On June 19, the FOMC decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent after concluding a two-day policy meeting.
The refinance index, which measures the activity to replace higher rate mortgages with lower rate mortgages, increased 3 percent from the previous week, according to MBA.
"Mortgage rates dropped again for most loan types, which led to an increase in refinance activity, partly driven by a 9 percent jump in VA applications," said Kan.
However, MBA's purchase index before seasonal adjustment dropped 2 percent from the previous week. After removing the influences of predictable seasonal patterns, the seasonally adjusted purchase index dropped 1 percent from one week earlier, according to MBA.
"Despite these lower rates, purchase applications decreased 2 percent, but were still considerably higher (9 percent) than a year ago," Kan said.