Mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased 6.0% on an unadjusted basis in August compared to July, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS).
‘As the summer winds down, mortgage applications for new homes saw a seasonally driven decrease in August,’ explains Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics for the MBA, in a release. ‘However, applications for new homes were still up 19 percent relative to the same month last year, which is consistent with what we've seen so far in 2015.’
About 68.5% of applications for new homes in August were for conventional loans, while 19.0% were for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration. About 11.6% were for Veterans Affairs loans, while about 0.9% were for Rural Housing Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture loans.
The average loan size for a new home in August was $317,035, up from $316,995 in July.
As of August, new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 524,000 units, a decrease of 1.9% compared to about 534,000 units in July, according to the BAS.
On an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates that there were 41,000 new home sales in August – a decrease of 6.8% from 44,000 new home sales in July.