The first sentence says that 84 bil was due to reduced purchase originations, the rest (616 bln) is refi’s. The article is mostly about fewer refi’s in the 5’s, ratewise. I’m not sure if 84 bln lower purcahse originations is the indicator to determine the buying, number of units sold is a better index because houses purchased now cost less, in many cases, a lot less, so less will be borrowed. I also think todays buyer is probably biting off less than they can chew as opposed to two years ago, partially due to lower prices and partially due to marcoeconmic uncertainty.

I guess I have been one those who mentions buying activity, but I’m not a realtor, just a potential landlord shopping the market for a cheap rental, I’m not making this stuff up, there are people buying real estate right now, lots of them, it would be easier for me if they weren’t, but they are. Inventory, number of sales, number of offers, days on market, these are metrics to determine activity, loan originations can be a factor but it’s a smaller indicator and the large refi percentage clouds it so you have to seperate the data.