From Mortgage News Daily (not a group prone to hyperbole, though I don’t really know for sure) comes this report of the “housing industry unraveling” due to record declines in mortgage purchase applications now that the free government money has stopped.
Recall that the first round of homebuyer tax credits expired on December 1st, so, to see the May plunge far outpace the previous decline is a bit surprising. Of course, the combination of government giveaways and seasonal adjustments will continue to wreak havoc with all the housing data for some time to come, the area indicated in red above being the latest example. Since mortgage purchases applications would normally be rising at this time of the year due to the pickup in buying in the spring, but, instead, they are falling, a smaller than expected number is seasonally adjusted downward producing the result shown above.
![[Most Recent USD from www.kitco.com]](http://www.weblinks247.com/indexes/idx24_usd_en_2.gif)
The 30-year mortgage rate hits 4.79 percent and mortgage apps plunge. That FHA commissioner had it right last week when he said this is a very sick market…
The scale of the graph makes it look worse than it is, but it is certainly looking bad enough anyway.
[...] to get a mortgage because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t buy the mortgage from your lender. Mortgage applications are way down, which is no surprise now that the home buyer tax credit is gone and refinancing is difficult [...]