The number of mortgage applications from prospective homebuyers declined for the week ending Feb. 4, along with the share of refinance applications, following the rise in mortgage interest rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Market Composite Index, which measures the volume of mortgage applications, fell by 8.1 percent from a week earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis. “Mortgage rates continued to edge higher last week, with the 30-year fixed rate climbing to 3.83 percent,” Joel Kan, MBA’s Associate Vice President of Economic and Industry Forecasting, said in a Feb. 9 press release. “Rates followed the U.S. 10-year yield and other sovereign bonds as the Federal Reserve and other key global central banks responded to growing inflationary pressures and signaled that they will start to remove accommodative policies.” As mortgage rates were 87 basis points higher than a week back, there was a decline in refinance applications, Kan noted. Refinance applications only …