We Need Another Homebuyer Tax Credit, Poll Says

The MBA said mortgage applications increased by 13% last week, though the bulk of the increase came from homeowners looking to refinance their existing home loans, rather than applying for new home purchase loans.

Refi applications accounted for 81.4% of all applications, up from a 78.1% share in the prior week. It was the highest refi share of mortgage applications since January of 2009.

Economists expect the National Association of Realtors to report next week that existing home sales fell 4.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.14 million, according to Briefing.com consensus estimates. Existing home sales fell 5.1% in June to a rate of 5.37 million units.

Sales of newly built homes in July are expected to rise 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 338,000, from 330,000 in June and a record-low rate of 267,000 units sold in May.

While any increase in the rate of home sales is seen as a good sign for the economy and housing market in general, the uptick in June home sales still represented the second-weakest month on record after May's depressed figures. It was also 76.3% lower than the 1.4 million-peak in July 2005, at the height of the housing bubble.

The Commerce Department estimated that 210,000 new homes were on the market nationwide at the end of June, the lowest level of inventory in more than 40 years. It would take 7.6 months to sell through that inventory at the most recently reported sales pace.

-- Reported by Miriam Marcus Reimer from New York.

RELATED STORIES:

>>Mortgage Applications Spike on Refi

>>Ryland, Beazer Gain on Merger Talk

>>D.R. Horton to Outpace Homebuilder Peers

>>New Home Construction Rises in July

>>Homebuilder Sentiment Edges Lower

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints