US mortgage applications jump on refinancings-MBA

NEW YORK, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Applications for U.S. home mortgages jumped for a third consecutive week as plunging interest rates encouraged more homeowners to seek refinancings, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications surged by 16.9 percent in the week ending Jan. 18 to 4,178.2, the highest level since March 2004. The activity was up 92 percent since the beginning of November and more than offset a 4.6 percent fall last week in the index for home purchase applications to 439.9, it said.

Refinancings accounted for two-thirds of all applications.

The MBA's market composite index, a measure of overall mortgage loan application volume, rose last week by 8.3 percent to 981.5.

The rise followed a drop in the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate to 5.49 percent last week from 5.62 percent in the previous week and 6.18 percent in mid-December, the trade group said.

"It is clear that borrowers are responding to the 40-80 basis point drop in rates we have seen since Nov. 2 across" mortgage products, Jay Brinkmann, vice president of research and economics at the MBA, said in a statement. (Reporting by Al Yoon, editing by Walker Simon)