Daily Financial News - Mortgage | Real Estate | Stock Market

MBA: Weekly Refinance Index +11.3%. Purchase Apps at Nine Year Low - In this week's release, which reports on loan application activity for the week ending November 6, 2009, demand for new mortgage loans increased 3.2% from one week earlier. The Refinance index rose 11.3% while the Purchase index fell 11.7%, its lowest level since December of 2000.

A rising trend of mortgage applications indicates home buying interest is increasing, a positive for the housing industry and economy as a whole.

Fannie and Freddie: Lending Rates Hold Below 5 Percent - Mortgage rates continued to ease during the week ended November 12 according to information released this morning by Freddie Mac.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.91 percent with 0.7 point according to the results of the weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Last week the average was 4.98 percent also with 0.7 point. The 30-year FRM has had an average rate below 5 percent for five out of the last seven weeks.

The 15-year FRM averaged 4.36 percent with 0.6 point, down from 4.40 percent with 0.6 point during the previous week.

The five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) dropped 6 basis points to 4.29 percent. Fees and points were unchanged at 0.6 point.

One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs were down slightly to an average of 4.46 percent from last week's average of 4.47 percent. Fees and points increased from 0.5 point to 0.6 point.