After a slow February in Boston where residential sales were down significantly compared to February in 2007, activity has started to pick up significantly. The Boston condo market will get a shot in the arm as the rate changes and conforming loan limits improve across the nation. Here is the report published today by Mortgage Bankers Association.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 26, 2008) — The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 21, 2008.  The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 965.9, an increase of 48.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 652.0 one week earlier.  On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 46.1 percent compared with the previous week and was up 41.1 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 82.2 percent to 4255.2 from 2335.2 the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 10.6 percent to 403.7 from 365.0 one week earlier.  The Conventional Purchase Index increased 10.7 percent while the Government Purchase Index (largely FHA) increased 10.1 percent. On an unadjusted basis, the Purchase Index increased 10.4 percent to 449.2 from 406.9 the previous week.  The seasonally adjusted Conventional Index increased 54.3 percent to 1310.4 from 849.0 the previous week, and the seasonally adjusted Government Index increased 21.1 percent to 391.7 from 323.5 the previous week.

“The Federal Reserve acted last week to bring some stability to the mortgage-backed securities market and we saw an immediate impact with a drop in mortgage rates.  With a drop in the 30-year fixed rate of at least a quarter of a point, we saw a sharp increase in refinance applications, but applications for home purchases also increased over where they have been the last few weeks, although still below where they were this time last year,” said Jay Brinkmann, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is up 11.3 percent to 743.6 from 668.4.  The four week moving average is up 3.1 percent to 375.2 from 363.8 for the Purchase Index, while this average is up 18.3 percent to 2901.9 from 2452.8 for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 62.0 percent of total applications from 49.7 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity decreased to 3.8 from 7.9 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.74 percent from 5.98 percent, with points increasing to 1.13 from 0.90 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.23 percent from 5.24 percent, with points increasing to 1.15 from 0.97 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 7.02 percent from 6.99 percent, with points increasing to 1.71 from 1.64 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

**SPECIAL NOTES**

The survey covers approximately 50 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, and has been conducted weekly since 1990.  Respondents include mortgage bankers, commercial banks and thrifts.  Base period and value for all indexes is March 16, 1990=100.