The September volume of new home purchase mortgage applications remained unchanged from the previous month, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's Builder Application Survey.
The trade group's estimate, which combines mortgage application data, market coverage assumptions and other factors, shows new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 425,000 units in September. MBA's seasonally adjusted estimate for September, however, is 0.2% higher than the August estimate of 424,000 units. While on an unadjusted basis, the MBA estimates 32,000 new home sales, down 5.9% from 34,000 in August.
The MBA applications data by product type show conventional loans represented the highest volume at 67.6% of all loan applications, but lower than the 68.9% estimate in August. Federal Housing Administration loans on the other hand increased to 16.7%, from 15.7% the previous month; Veterans Affairs loans represented 14.5% of the total in September, slightly higher than 14.3% in August; and Department of Agriculture loans represented 1.2%, up from 1% in August.
The average loan size of new homes decreased to over $298,270 in September, from roughly $300,440 in August.
The Builder Application Survey offers an early read on new home sales activity that also reflects MBA's efforts to closely track the Census Bureau data, Mike Fratantoni, MBA's chief economist, said in a press release. And while earlier this summer, and again last month, the first estimates from the Census Bureau were significantly higher than the estimates implied from the applications data, he added, "the revised data resulted in a much closer match to MBA's estimates" and will likely continue to be that way going forward.
