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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ild who wrote (36379)	7/20/2005 10:22:13 AM
From: ild	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 20, 2005) - The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 15. The Market Composite Index - a measure of mortgage loan application volume - was 801.1, an increase of 1.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 791.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 26.5 percent compared with the previous week and was up 28.6 percent compared with the same week one year earlier. The seasonally-adjusted Purchase Index decreased by 0.1 percent to 488.7 from 489.0 the previous week whereas the Refinance Index increased by 2.5 percent to 2618.2 from 2554.3 one week earlier. Other seasonally adjusted index activity includes the Conventional Index, which increased 0.8 percent to 1206.8 from 1196.9 the previous week, and the Government Index, which increased 6.9 percent to 124.2 from 116.2 the previous week. In an effort to better represent short term trends in the major indexes, four-week moving averages for seasonally-adjusted indexes will be included on a weekly basis. The four week moving average for the seasonally-adjusted Market Index is up 0.4 percent to 806.2 from 802.6. The four week moving average is up 0.5 percent to 494.0 from 491.7 for the Purchase Index while this average is up 0.4 percent to 2622.5 from 2611.7 for the Refinance Index. The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 45.7 percent of total applications from 45.1 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 28.5 percent of total applications from 27.9 percent the previous week. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.72 percent from 5.62 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.14 from 1.26 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans. The average contract interest rate for 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to 5.28 percent from 5.21 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 1.26 from 1.28 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans. The average contract interest rate for one-year ARMs increased to 4.63 percent from 4.56 percent one week earlier, with points decreasing to 0.99 from 1.01 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent LTV loans.

To: ild who wrote (36379)	7/20/2005 10:22:53 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

A Mortgage Salesman Makes His Pitch Benchmark Lending Group, a small, fast-growing California mortgage company, typifies the industry's current stampede into interest-only lending. Now the 39-year-old Mr. Ray is on pace to earn $200,000 this year in mortgage commissions. His friendly, efficient style helps win borrowers' trust. But his biggest edge comes from offering alluring and controversial mortgages that require unusually slim payments for a few years, before bigger sums fall due. Some customers use these loans to borrow as much as seven times their annual income -- a staggering jump from the two-times-annual-income level that was the rule of thumb when the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was the norm. online.wsj.com When one trainee asked about grimmer scenarios in the event of a drawn-out property slump, people at Benchmark stared at him with bewilderment and pity, as if he didn't understand the first thing about real estate. The firm's overarching philosophy is explained in a separate meeting by Jodi Ehrlicher, Benchmark's processing manager. "Buying a home is a leap into the unknown, but you have to do it if you want to get anywhere," she says.