do mortgage application stats exclude multiple submissions?

[sniglet]

Does anyone know if the statistics reported on the number of mortgage applications subtracts duplicate filings? I've heard a lot about how many buyers have to make numerous applications these days to find a lender these days (i.e. since standards have tightened). Would all these filing attempts (for the same buyer) inflate the over-all statistic that is reported?

I've also wondered who exactly is surveyed to collect the data for this statistic. Is it just banks? Or do they include a representative sample of mortgage brokers? If they only look at banks, they might get a very skewed view of what is happening. In fact, banks could be seeing their volume of loans go up even as mortgage total volume is down, simply because the lenders who depend on securitization are dead in the water.

[biliruben]