Mortgage Application Activity Up 2.6%

More people were seeking mortgages last week, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

The Market Composite Index, the MBA’s measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier while the unadjusted index was up by 3%.

Both the seasonally adjusted and unadjusted Purchase Index were up by 2%, while the latter was also 17% lower than the same week one year ago. The Refinance Index increased 5% from the previous week and was 6% lower than the same week one year ago while the refinance share of mortgage activity inched up to 30.6% of total applications from 30.2% the previous week.

Among the federal programs, the FHA share of total applications increased to 12.9% from 12.7% the week prior while the VA share of total applications increased to 11.7% from 11.3% and the USDA share of total applications remained unchanged at 0.4%.

The MBA also reported a 0.1% uptick in its Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI) to 94.0 in April; the index was benchmarked to 100 in March 2012. The Conventional MCAI increased 0.3%t, while the Government MCAI was flat. Of the component indices of the Conventional MCAI, both the Jumbo MCAI and the Conforming MCAI were up by 0.3%.

“Mortgage credit availability was little changed in April, with credit categories such as conventional, conforming, and jumbo seeing very small monthly gains,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist. “The supply of credit has stabilized, expanding slightly over the past four months but remaining close to 2012 lows. Lenders continue to reduce capacity with mortgage rates still above 7% and origination volume moving at a slow pace. Even with challenging affordability conditions and fairly strong housing demand, credit remains tight and housing supply low.”