Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of November 18, 2009

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) decreased 2.5 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. .

Refinance Index: decreased 1.4 percent from the previous week

Purchase Index: decreased 7.9 percent compared with the previous week and was 14.7 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

Refinance Share of Mortgage Activity: increased to 72.9 percent of total applications from 71.5 percent the previous week. This refinance share is the highest share since the week ending May 15, 2009

ARM Refinance Activity: decreased to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent of total applications from the previous week.

MBA outlook: (Excerpted from mbaa.org) The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 9.64 percent of all loans outstanding as of the end of the third quarter of 2009.

Its job loss that is now hurting people. Job losses continue to increase and drive up delinquencies and foreclosures because mortgages are paid with paychecks, not percentage point increases in GDP. A perfect observation by Jay Brinkmann, MBAs Chief Economist.

According to the MBAA.org site: T he outlook is that delinquency rates and foreclosure rates will continue to worsen before they improve. First, it is unlikely the employment picture will get better until sometime next year and even then jobs will increase at a very slow pace. Perhaps more importantly, there is no reason to expect that when the economy begins to add more jobs, those jobs will be in areas with the biggest excess housing inventory and the highest delinquency rates.