Mortgage Applications Continue to Rise

By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Mortgage application filings rose a seasonally adjusted 5.4% last week compared with the last week of March, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Wednesday.

Interest rates charged on fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages increased across the board.

Applications for the week ended April 4 were up 10.9% compared with the same week a year ago.

Both applications for mortgages to purchase homes and to refinance existing mortgages rose on a week-to-week basis, according to the Washington-based MBA's weekly survey.

Refinancing filings rose 3.4%, while home purchase applications increased a seasonally adjusted 8.1%.

The number of applications for Federal Housing Administration-backed loans also went up last week. The seasonally adjusted government index, which includes mostly FHA loans and covers both purchase mortgages and refinancings, increased 12.9%, the MBA's data showed.

The four-week moving average for all loans as tracked by the MBA was up 1.8%, according.

Refinancings made up 52.2% of last week's application volumes, off from 53.4% the previous week. Adjustable-rate mortgages accounted for 6.5% of filings, up from 5.4%.

Meanwhile, interest rates on 30- and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages last week averaged 5.78% and 5.39%, respectively, up from the prior week's 5.75% and 5.27%. The rate on one-year ARMs averaged 7.06%, up from 7% the previous week.

The MBA survey covers about half of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications.