MBA Mortgage Market Index

The MBA Mortgage Market Index is the Market Composite Index (total applications) from the Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, reported as index changes. The Mortgage Bankers Association has published it weekly since 1990 for the United States, with responses from mortgage bankers, commercial banks, thrifts and credit unions. It covers more than 75% of US retail and consumer-direct applications for 1- to 4-family homes, excluding wholesale broker and correspondent channels. It counts applications, not closed loans or dollar volumes, while purchase applications lead home sales by about 4 to 6 weeks.

Applications are collected Saturday 00:00 through Friday 23:59 for release every Wednesday at 7:00 AM ET, with stated adjustments in holiday weeks. Christmas and New Year can combine into a two-week release, and Market and Purchase show seasonally adjusted and unadjusted figures. Each release reports Market, Purchase and Refinance indices, percent changes, loan shares, and contract rates with points. Releases are final without revisions and read for direction of percent change, with purchase leading sales by 4 to 6 weeks and refinance signaling prepayments.

The Market Index covers 15 indices across purpose, loan type and product, including eight cross-breakdowns. Purchase moves with rates, home prices, credit availability, seasonality and economic strength, while refinance moves with rates, home values and underwriting standards.

• Purchase Index: all home-purchase applications across conventional and government loans and all products.
• Refinance Index: all refinance applications (new loans replacing old loans), with only holiday adjustments.
• Conventional Index: conforming and jumbo loans of any balance across prime and non-prime credit tiers.
• Government Index: FHA, VA and USDA loans.
• Fixed-rate Index: all fixed-rate loans, including 30-year, 15-year and FHA and VA fixed loans.
• Adjustable-rate Index: all adjustable-rate loans, including 5/1 hybrids and similar products.

For the week ending September 13, 2024 (reported September 18, 2024), the Market Composite rose 14.2% adjusted and 26% unadjusted on a Labor Day adjustment. Refinance jumped 24% on the week and 127% from a year earlier, while adjusted purchase rose only 5% and stood 0.4% below a year earlier. Refinance share jumped to 51.2% from 46.7% as the 30-year conforming fixed rate fell to 6.15% from 6.29%. MBA's Joel Kan tied the jump to rate-cut expectations, showing refinancing alone can drive the headline while holidays widen the adjusted gap.

1. Count applications: each week lenders report raw application counts for each group, such as purchase versus refinance and conventional versus government. Average loan size divides total dollars by application count.
2. % change: divide the week count by the prior week count, subtract 1 and multiply by 100. For example, 1,250 versus 1,100 gives 13.63%.
3. Chain index: multiply the prior index level by 1 plus the percent change divided by 100, so 125.5 times 1.1363 equals 142.6. All unadjusted indices start at 100.00 for the week of March 16, 1990.
4. Seasonal and holiday treatment: Market and Purchase use a model-based spectral method (frequency analysis) to remove seasonal effects, while refinance gets only holiday adjustments. Holiday adjustments cover New Year, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shares, rates and loan sizes are never seasonally adjusted.
5. Re-benchmark: levels were set equal to existing values as of January 14, 2011, then chained forward. The public switch covered the week ending September 16, 2011, reported September 21, 2011.
6. Rates and points: contract rates and points are simple averages across qualifying lenders after removing outliers. Quotes assume 80% LTV (loan divided by home value), 1 point equals 1% of the loan, and effective rate adds points assuming early payoff.