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From The Mortgage Bankers Association: Weekly Application Survey

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 9.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 10.4 percent compared with the previous week and decreased 52.3 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

The Refinance Index increased 10.7 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 4.4 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 9.8 compared with the previous week and was 19.1 percent lower than the same week one year ago.

The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 1.0 percent. The four week moving average is up 1.1 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is down 2.4 percent for the Refinance Index.

The refinance share of mortgage activity increased to 71.7 percent of total applications from 71.5 percent the previous week. The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity increased to 4.1 percent from 4.0 percent of total applications from the previous week.

The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages decreased to 5.00 percent from 5.13 percent, with points decreasing to 1.05 from 1.17 (including the origination fee) for 80 percent loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans.

From The U.S. Census Bureau: Housing Starts Decline in December

Privately-owned housing starts in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 557,000. This is 4.0 percent (±9.3%)* below the revised November estimate of 580,000, but is 0.2 percent (±11.5%)* above the December 2008 rate of 556,000.

Single-family housing starts in December were at a rate of 456,000; this is 6.9 percent (±8.5%)* below the revised November figure of 490,000. The December rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 92,000.

An estimated 553,800 housing units were started in 2009. This is 38.8 percent (±1.4%) below the 2008 figure of 905,500.

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