Mortgage Applications Drop - Hover Near 19 Year Lows

Despite being told by Bullard, Yellen (and numerous other Federal Reserve thinkers) that quantitative easing was aimed at improving the housing market, the data suggests that - somewhat predictably - it did very little for mom-and-pop organic real home-buyer but stoked speculation and fervor among fast-money cheap-funding investors (and as Marc Faber noted actually hurt the average homebuyer via un-affordability. The week-to-week ebbs and and flows in mortgage applications are notable (this week saw purchase applications drop 5% and back near recent lows) but a bigger picture glance at just where this "recovery" has been tells a very different story about confidence among home-buyers.

Mortgage applications for home purchases have basically flatlined since the Fed began QE and hover now just above their lowest levels since 1995...

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