Over the course of the past year or so, the number of mortgage applications being filed every week has slowly but surely trended downward, even despite a few outliers. That certainly continued this week thanks to a huge decline in request volume overall, driven by consumers growing far less interested in refinancing specifically.

In all, the seasonally adjusted number of home loan requests filed nationwide fell 7.2 percent from the previous seven-day period in the week ending Sept. 5, and that's even with an adjustment for the Labor Day bank holiday factored into the calculations, according to the latest Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The current number is the lowest observed since Dec. 2000.

Applications fell across both refinance and purchase requests, but it was the former that really drove the bus, the report said. Requests for refinances in particular slid 11 percent from the previous week, and now sit at the lowest level observed since around the start of the recent recession, in Nov. 2008. Meanwhile, though, purchases also took a step back, falling 3 percent from a week earlier, and now sit at the lowest point since February. It should also be noted that purchase requests were also down 12 percent on an annual basis from the same week last year. Consequently, refinance requests only made up 55 percent of the mortgage market overall last week, down from 57 percent seven days earlier.

And yet affordability remains
These drops came despite the fact that affordability for refinances in particular stayed quite high, the report said. In fact, rates on 15-year fixed, and five- and one-year adjustable mortgages – those most often used in refinances – fell once again. For instance, 15-year FRMs fell to an average of 3.44 percent from the previous 3.48 percent, while those popular ARM options slid to 3.12 percent from 3.19 percent.

Meanwhile, though, 30-year fixed home loans – which are usually favored by buyers – did see an increase in rates, with the average rising to 4.27 percent from 4.25 percent a week earlier, the report said. That was the first increase seen for this loan type in about a month.

While affordability is still quite high, especially in comparison with historical norms, there may be a further chill coming. Many experts project that before the close of 2014, rates will start to rise considerably, and could be as much as a full percentage point higher by this time next year.