The rising unemployment rate, and a shrinking U.S. economy, has struggling consumers looking for relief through Mortgage Refinance. A smaller amount of buyers seeking new loans and those seeking lower monthly payments on current Loans, are currently raising the number of applications. The percentage increase ending January 9, 2009, includes both mortgage refinance and purchase loans. This happens to be the highest combined percentage increase since 2003.

The Index hit an eight year low with a 35.9% drop, in November of 2008, and The Mortgage Bankers Association has their seasonally adjusted purchase index showing a 14.1% drop, although applications for mortgage refinance have jumped by 25.6 percent. Mortgage applications helped the four week average by rising 10.8 percent last week alone.

Everyone is hoping the low mortgage rates will spike demand for new Mortgage applications, even though the purchase market shows slower growth than the refinance market. The Mortgage Refinance sector will show an increase in applications due to the weakening economy as consumers continue looking for ways to reduce their expenditures.

Mortgage Refinance jumped from 79.8 to 85.3 last week, which is the highest increase for the Refinance sector, solely, since 1990. Several factors including the climbing unemployment rate and its role in slowing the economy have contributed to shaky financial markets, keeping buyers from applying for mortgage finance.

The World is watching and waiting for positive change in a situation some have called, the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression. There seems to be little sign of recovery even with a significant rise in applications for Mortgage Refinance so it is hard to tell what is going to happen over the next 6 months to a year. We have to rely on Government proposals and plans for right now.

People will not be comfortable with the way the housing market shows instability, no matter how low the interest rates are, if job security is in question, it will directly affect income and individual ideas about spending. In order to benefit from low mortgage rates or a Mortgage Refinance, these factors have to be.

The 30 year mortgage rates in this Nation dramatically declined in November of 2008, when the Federal Reserve announced its plan to buy approximately $500 billion worth of mortgage securities that were backed by Fannie, Ginnie and Freddie. The Federal Government, prompted by the dive of the finance market, has made a commitment to keep consumers borrowing costs down through the purchase of mortgage-backed securities. As for Mortgage Refinance, now is a great time to lock in at a low rate since we know rates will not stay down forever.

Requests for loans are up 200 percent from two months ago according to one online real estate service company. Companies offering mortgage services say they are working hard to handle the increase in work load from the dramatic increase in applications for Mortgage Refinance. Some mortgage companies happily predict a continuation over the next few months, on average, given the mortgage rates will remain low for at least 6 more month.