Florida Mortgage Applications Up Slightly
Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose last week, driven by an increase in loan refinancing, an industry trade group said on Wednesday.
Florida mortgage application activity rose 1.5 percent to 639.8 in the week ended February 9, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.
The group’s seasonally adjusted refinancing index increased by 4.5 percent to 2,031.7, overshadowing a 1 percent dip in the MBA’s seasonally adjusted purchase index to 400.7.
All three measures of mortgage loan applications posted slim declines on a seasonally adjusted four-week moving average, to avoid volatile week-to-week swings, but were above levels of a year ago.
The seasonally adjusted four-week average for the market index, which is in place to track Florida mortgage loan application volume, was 1.1 percent lower at 628.1.
The Florida home loan purchase index average was down 2.4 percent from the figure’s four-week moving average at 404.0 and up slightly from 391.7 a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the refinance index was off 0.2 percent at 1,941.0 on a four-week average, but well above the same week a year ago.
Borrowing costs on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, excluding points, were little changed at 6.24 percent, compared with 6.23 percent last week.
The adjustable-rate share of the total mortgage applications slipped to 21.2 percent from 22.3 percent, while the overall share of total loan requests devoted to Florida mortgage refinancing was unchanged at 46.1 percent.
More signs about the health of the Florida housing market, which drove the state economy for most of this decade before starting to sour in the summer of 2005, will come from reports by the National Association of Home Builders Thursday and the U.S. Commerce Department Friday.
Housing starts climbed 4.5 percent in December but posted the biggest decline in 15 years for all of 2006, the U.S. Commerce Department reported last month.
January housing starts and building permits will be reported on Friday, a day after the Florida home builder sentiment reading for February is scheduled to be released.
Price cuts, lower Florida mortgage rates and incentives have helped builders lighten inventory of unsold homes, but the supply remains burdensome, according to industry analysts.
