Mortgage applications for new home purchases decreased by 6% on an unadjusted basis in November compared with October, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Builder Application Survey (BAS).
About 68.4% of applications for new homes in November were for conventional loans; about 18.1% were for Federal Housing Administration loans; about 12.6% were for Veterans Affairs loans; and about 0.9% were for Rural Housing Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture loans.
There were about 37,000 new home sales in November – a decrease of 5.1% compared with about 39,000 in October, according to the MBA's data.
Despite the month-over-month decrease, the MBA estimates that new home sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 524,000 units in November – an increase of 5.9% from the October pace of 495,000 units.
The average loan size for a new home purchased in November was $320,854, down from $320,881 in October.
Lynn Fisher, vice president of research and economics for the MBA, says the fact that new home sales are up on a year-over-year basis is a good sign.
‘This is a very good result, considering the time of year,’ Fisher says in a release. ‘On a seasonally adjusted basis, we estimate that there were 524,000 new home sales in November – up 5.9 percent from our October estimate of 495,000 and up 31 percent from November a year ago. The BAS Index also reached its highest November reading since the index began in 2012.’