After five weeks of increase, applications for new loans for home purchase or refinance dropped the week of Good Friday. The total amount of applications fell 11%, with purchase applications falling 11.3% and those for refinancing by 10.9%. The Mortgage Bank Association attributed this to the holidays, stating "The MBA does not provide a holiday adjustment for the Easter/Passover weekend, which may have contributed to this week's decrease in application volume,". It is still a blow however, as rates on mortgages are at a very low rate, during the previous five weeks they had lowered by half a percentage point before raising. Interest rates had been between 6.5% in October before the government started the intervention,

It is hoped that buying will pick up on the spring, as that is a normally the buying/selling season. Although rates are low, there are still other issues to contend with, such as fear of unemployment with the current state of the market, and those bargain hunters that will still hold out for a better deal.

Prices may lower, as the Federal Reserve had pledged to buy almost $1.45 trillion in mortgage-related securities and the U.S Treasury with $300 billion. The Reserve to date has only gotten through a quarter of their purchases and the Treasury is still buying bonds each month. Nancy Vanden Houten, an analyst at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in NJ, spoke about these actions, saying that "We think the Fed and Treasury buying programs have produced mortgage rates that are significantly lower than they would have been otherwise,...But given all of the variables at work, there are limits to the effectiveness of any program aimed at pushing mortgage rates lower still."

Hope can also be seen through the other programs in action to spark the market. Under President Obama´s housing stimulus plan, over 568,000 of the 2008 tax returns filed up to March 6^th, claimed first-time home buyer credits. This was reported by the National Association of Home Builders, based on data complied by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Also, while refinancing recently decreased, overall it has doubled since February. It could also see a great increase when the Home Affordable Refinance Program is completed.