Filed under: Mortgages, Economic Indicators, Housing Market, Home Buying, Interest Rates
NEW YORK -- Applications for U.S. home mortgages climbed last week as interest rates fell, an industry group said Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, rose 5.3 percent in the week ended May 2. That's a rebound from the previous week, when applications for U.S. home mortgages fell to their lowest level since December 2000.
Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.43 percent in the week, the lowest since November 2013. It was down 6 basis points from 4.49 percent the week before.
The survey covers more than 75 percent of U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA.
On Tuesday, MBA said first-quarter commercial and multifamily mortgage loan originations were down 1 percent from the same period a year ago and down 45 percent from the fourth-quarter of 2013.
