Housing market optimists claim that we are near or even at the bottom in terms of housing prices. We are not willing to go there yet. This morning, the Mortgage Bankers Association said that mortgage applications fell last week their lowest levels in eight years. This isn’t the kind of news you get at or near a bottom. Refinancings have also fallen off a cliff.

Specifically, the application index dropped to 419.3 during the week ended Aug. 15, its lowest level since the index hit 298.3 in December 2000. Application volume is down 61% from its 2008 peak in February. No single bit of data tells the full story, but evidence like this suggests that the housing bottom is still over the horizon.