Applications for mortgages for new home purchases decreased 6% on an unadjusted basis in November compared with October but were up 12.2% compared with November 2016, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Applications Survey (BAS).
On a seasonally adjusted basis, applications for new home purchases increased 0.6% compared with October.
Part of the reason applications for new home sales were down month-over-month on an unadjusted basis is because of the impact of the recent hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.
However, Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics for the MBA, says new home sales in the affected regions are now starting to recover.
“Looking ahead to 2018, filling open construction jobs will remain a main challenge for the home-building industry,” Fisher says in a statement.
The MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 663,000 units in November.
On an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates that there were about 47,000 new home sales in November, a decrease of 11.3% compared with about 53,000 in October.
By product type, conventional loans comprised 71.4% of loan applications, Federal Housing Administration loans comprised 15.2%, Rural Housing Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture loans comprised 1.1% and Veterans Affairs loans comprised 12.3%.
The average loan size for a new home decreased to $337,427 – down from $339,534 in October.