Due to the impact from hurricanes Harvey and Irma, applications for mortgages for new home purchases took a steep dive in September, falling 20% compared with August and 7.5% compared with September 2016, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Builder Applications Survey (BAS).
“Applications for new home purchases were down year over year in large part due the impacts of hurricane activity,” says Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics for the MBA, in a release. “In particular, monthly applications fell by 37 percent in Florida and 11 percent in Texas, which account for a large share of the applications in the survey.”
By product type, conventional loans composed 72.3% of loan applications, Federal Housing Administration loans composed 13.9%, RHS/USDA loans composed 1.0% and Veterans Affairs loans composed 12.7%.
The average loan size for a new home in September was $334,722, down from $334,940 in August.
The MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 571,000 units in September. That’s a decrease of 12.8% from the August pace of 655,000 units.
On an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates that there were 42,000 new home sales in September, representing a decrease of 19.2% from about 52,000 in August.