What the Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Prophets Aren’t Revealing

This article about the mortgage industry is definitely worth reading.

1- The Market Composite Index of application activity increased 42.4% from July 07 to 01/25/08. MBA states that the current composite index reading is 70.7% higher than January 06. (People are filing mortgage applications like crazy. What the heavens are they filing for?)

2- The home purchase index is relatively flat for the last 6 months. (Doesn’t seem they are applying to buy more new or existing homes. What are they up to?)

3- The refinancing application index is up 66.2% since July. Most change occurred in January 08. (Yowsers! Refinance your home and not buy a new one?! How novel!)

4- The refinance applications “market share” has increased from 39.4% in July to 73% of last week’s applications. That is a 33.6% change or an 85.3% increase in refinancing applications that mortgage bankers are perusing over compared to July 07. (John Q Public is figuring out how to take advantage of the FED cut. “Moral hazard” – you say).

Read: What the Housing ‘Apocalypse’ Prophets Aren’t Revealing