Mortgage refinancing slows down as interest rates rise

• Mortgage applications fell for a fourth straight week as refinancing waned, an industry report showed.
• The Washington-based Mortgage Bankers Association said its weekly gauge of mortgage applications declined 0.7 percent to 704.8 in the week ended March 4 from 710.1 in the prior week.
• Not since the middle of last year has the index fallen in as many weeks.
• The gauge of refinancing applications declined 4.6 percent to 2176.8, the lowest since the week of Jan. 2 and a sign homeowners will rely less on home equity as a source of cash for additional spending.
• "Volume is down and as a mortgage lender you have to adjust to the times by tapering back on staff," said Bob Moulton, president of Manhasset, N.Y.-based Americana Mortgage Group Inc. "I've cut my staff back from 20 people to 16 already this year."
• The mortgage bankers' index of purchase applications rose 2.7 percent to 451.7, the highest since Dec. 24, from 440.
• The gauge reached a high of 501.6 in January of last year.
• The share of refinancing as a percent of all mortgage applications dropped to 42.6 percent, the lowest since the week ended Sept. 3.
• The refinancing gauge has declined 78 percent since reaching a record in May 2003.
• The mortgage bankers' survey covers approximately 50 percent of all retail residential mortgage originations and has been conducted weekly since 1990.
• The base period is March 16, 1990, when the value for all indexes was 100.
• In May 2003, before central bankers began raising rates, the percentage was about 34 percent.
• Some economists forecast longer-term mortgage rates to rise later this year and keep a lid on home sales.
• Anthony Chan, senior economist at JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management in Columbus, Ohio, expects 30-year fixed mortgage rates to reach as high as 6.7 percent this year.