Applications for new home purchases decreased 5.0% in December compared with November, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS).
This change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns.
“The BAS showed mixed results last month with some lenders seeing steady or slightly increasing application levels, while others saw declines,” says Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics for the MBA, in a statement. “On net, we estimate that new single-family home sales were down by about eight percent in December on a seasonally adjusted basis relative to November but remain 17 percent above a year ago.”
By product type, conventional loans composed 68.0% of applications, Federal Housing Administration loans composed 18.5%, Rural Housing Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture loans composed 1.0%, and Veterans Affairs loans composed 12.6%.
The average loan size for a new home increased from $320,854 in November to $333,182 in December, according to the report.
Sales of new single-family homes were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 480,000 units in December, the MBA estimates. That’s a decrease of 8.4% compared with the November pace of about 524,000 units.
On an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates that there were about 34,000 new home sales in December – a decrease of 8.1% compared with about 37,000 in November.