MBA Mortgage Applications for week ending 8/5 -Purchase Index Week/Week: -0.9% -Refinance Index Week/Week: +30.4% -Composite Index Week/Week: +21.7 -Refinance index driven up by very low rates. -Purchase index indicates that housing is still quite soft.

Jobs ADP private jobs for July +114,000. It is hard to get an accurate estimate for Friday’s BLS jobs report from the ADP report, and BLS is what counts. Last month BLS private jobs was 100,000 less than ADP. Also, it is likely that there will be a continuing loss of public jobs at the [...]

MBA Mortgage Applications (week ending 7/22) -Purchase Index Week/Week: -3.8% -Refinance Index Week/Week: -5.5% -Composite Index Week/Week: -5.0% -Refi apps fell to 69.6% of total apps from 70.1% the previous week -The Purchase Index indicates that July home sales are likely to be weak -Four-week moving average for all apps was down 0.3%

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Existing Home Sales -4.77m annual rate for June, down from 7.08m 2005 peak -Down 0.8% since May and down 8.8% since June 2010 -Median home price $184,300, up 0.8% from June 2010. -Distressed homes accounted for 30% of June sales -Inventory rose 3.3% to 3.77 million existing homes for sale -This is a 9.5-month supply [...]

The popular press continues to point out that while a record share of Americans want to buy homes, both U.S. government and corporate policies (often working at cross-purposes) are making it more difficult. Of course, it is Wells or Chase or the servicer who bear the brunt of the liability if the loan “goes south,” [...]

MBA Mortgage Applications -Purchase Index: Week/Week +4.8% -Refinance Index: Week/Week -9.2% -Composite Index: Week/Week -5.2% -Rising Treasury and mortgage rates were responsible for refi dip.

MBA Mortgage Applications -Purchase Index: Week/Week -3.0% -Refinance Index: Week/Week -2.6% -Composite Index: Week/Week -2.7% – This makes it a bit harder to disguise the error in yesterday’s media fiction that the housing market was looking good. On the other hand…

April FHFA Single Family Home Price Index: -Month/Month: 0.8%, first gain since May 2010 -Year/Year: -5.7% -Prices 19.3% below April 2007 peak -Prices roughly same as January 2004 -Full report tracks prices of homes with Fannie/Freddie loans

Bernanke’s speech yesterday presented a sober view of the economy. The most important line (since it is under direct control of the Fed) was “The [Federal Open Market] Committee also continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.”