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Mortgage Apps Rocked by COVID; Hard Hit Areas Paint Gloomy Picture
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
The
volume of mortgage applications plummeted last week as households, rattled by COVID-19
fears, self-isolated in their homes and businesses were shuttered in the
hardest hit states or scurried to shift operations to their employees' homes. In
the midst of it all, mortgage rates also rose significantly.
The
Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of
mortgage loan application volume, decreased 29.4 percent on a seasonally
adjusted basis during the week ended March 20 and was down 29 percent before adjustment.
Refinancing
volume, which had risen an aggregate of more than 100 percent in the weeks
ended February 28 and March 6, fell for the second straight week, losing 34 percent
last week alone. As an indication of how frenetic recent business has been,
however, refinancing activity was still 195 percent higher than the same week
last year and accounted for 69.3 percent of last week's applications. The
refinancing share during the week ended March 13 was 74.5 percent.
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