Demand for purchase mortgages ticked up last week as the spring homebuying season began to kick into gear, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported.
Applications for purchase loans increased a seasonally adjusted 3 percent for the week ending April 4 compared to a week earlier but were still down 14 percent on an annual basis, according to the latest Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.
Recently, demand for jumbo mortgages has grown, helping to ease mortgage credit overall even as appetite for smaller loans has lagged, the trade group has said.
As purchase loan applications increased, the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a balance of $417,000 or less stayed flat at 4.56 percent compared to the previous week.
Source: MBA