Mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased 3.0% in November compared with October but increased 12% compared with November 2015, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Builder Applications Survey.
This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.
“Mortgage applications for new homes continued to grow on a year-over-year basis in November, driven by continued improvement in the overall economy and job growth,” says Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics, in a release. “Despite the fact that overall home prices have increased at a greater than five percent annualized rate, the growth in average loan size for new homes has slowed, increasing three percent in November to $329,400 from a year ago and up just one percent since January.”
By product type, conventional loans composed 67.3% of loan applications, Federal Housing Administration loans composed 18.3%, Rural Housing Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture loans composed 0.7%, and Veterans Affairs loans composed 13.8%.
The average loan size for a new home in November was $329,389, down slightly from $329,634 in October.
As of the end of November, new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 588,000, the MBA estimates. That’s an increase of 7.5% compared with an estimated pace of about 547,000 units in October.
On an unadjusted basis, there were about 41,000 new home sales in November – a decrease of 6.8% compared with about 44,000 in October.