MBA: January New Home Purchase Mortgage Apps Surge
The Mortgage Bankers Association said January mortgage applications for new homes jumped by 34 percent from December and by 18.4 percent from a year ago.
MBA Builder Application Survey data for January show by product type, conventional loans composed 71.7 percent of loan applications, FHA loans composed 15.3 percent, RHS/USDA loans composed 1.2 percent and VA loans composed 11.7 percent. The average loan size of new homes decreased from $339,203 in December to $338,918 in January.
“Mortgage applications for new homes surged in January,” said MBA Vice President of Research and Economics Lynn Fisher. “This complements other positive news on U.S. job growth suggesting that economic fundamentals are strong.
MBA estimates new single-family home sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 700,000 units in January, the highest such estimate in the Survey since it began in 2013. The January estimate represents an increase of 26.4 percent from the December pace of 554,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates 54,000 new home sales in January, an increase of 35 percent from 40,000 in December.
The new home sales estimate is derived using mortgage application information from the BAS, as well as assumptions regarding market coverage and other factors.
The MBA Builder Application Survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders across the country. Using these data, as well as data from other sources, MBA provides an early estimate of new home sales volumes at the national, state and metro level. These data also provide information regarding types of loans used by new home buyers. Official new home sales estimates are conducted by the Census Bureau on a monthly basis. In those data, new home sales are recorded at contract signing, which is typically coincident with the mortgage application.
For additional information on MBA’s Builder Applications Survey, click https://www.mba.org/news-research-and-resources/forecasts-data-and-reports/single-family-research/servicing-operations-study-and-forum-for-prime-and-specialty-servicers-x75411.
