{"id":494810,"date":"2026-02-28T02:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/494810\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T02:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:51:09","slug":"mortgage-demand-calm-before-the-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/494810\/","title":{"rendered":"Mortgage Demand Calm Before The Storm?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mortgage application activity edged ever-so-slightly higher last week, with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reporting an increase of 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the week ending February 20.<\/p>\n

Refi applications continue to do the heavy lifting. The Refinance Index increased 4% from the previous week and was 150% higher than the same week one year ago. Conventional refinance applications rose 5% for the week, while VA refinances jumped 26%, as rates declined to their lowest levels since September 2022.<\/p>\n

Notably, rates have moved even lower this week and have held these new multi-year lows in very stable fashion. If history is any guide, this should lead to an even higher refi index next week.<\/p>\n

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Purchase demand moved lower, falling 5% on a seasonally adjusted basis, though activity remains 12% higher than the same week one year ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Joel Kan, MBA\u2019s Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist, attributed the modest increase in overall activity to declining Treasury yields, which helped push the 30-year fixed rate to its lowest level in several months.<\/p>\n

The composition of activity shifted further toward refinances. The refinance share of total applications increased to 58.6% from 57.4% the prior week, while ARM share held steady at 8.2%. FHA share decreased to 16.1%, VA share rose to 18.7%, and USDA share remained unchanged at 0.4%.<\/p>\n

Mortgage Rate Summary:<\/p>\n


\n30yr Fixed: 6.09% (from 6.17%) | Points: 0.53 (from 0.56)
\n15yr Fixed: 5.48% (from 5.50%) | Points: 0.70 (from 0.73)
\nJumbo 30yr: 6.20% (from 6.21%) | Points: 0.42 (from 0.27)
\nFHA: 5.97% (from 5.99%) | Points: 0.65 (unchanged)
\n5\/1 ARM: 5.23% (from 5.29%) | Points: 0.41 (from 0.62) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mortgage application activity edged ever-so-slightly higher last week, with the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reporting an increase of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-494810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}