New Home Applications Up in March

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA)rnestimated today that there was a 15 percent increase in applications for newrnhome purchases in March compared to February even as the annual pace of newrnhome sales eased. MBA’s Builder Application Survey (BAS) which tracks mortgagernapplication volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders, indicated thatrnsales of new single-family homes were running at a seasonally adjusted annual raternof 479,000 units in March, a decrease of 10.1 percent from the Februaryrnestimate of 533,000 units.</p

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis MBArnestimates sales for the month at 46,000 units. rnThis is an increase of 7.0 percent from the estimated 43,000 salesrnreported in February.</p

Conventional loans made up 68.3 percentrnof new home purchase applications and FHA-backed mortgages accounted for 17.2rnpercent.  VA loans comprised 12.9 percentrnand 1.6 percent were Rural Housing Services/USDA loans.  The average size of a new home loan increasedrnfrom $295,008 in February to $296,428 in March.</p

MBA derives its sales figures from mortgage application information gatheredrnthrough the BAS and assumptions about market coverage and other factors.   Official new home sales estimates are conducted by thernCensus Bureau on a monthly basis.  In that data, new home sales arernrecorded at contract signing, which is typically coincident with the mortgagernapplication.  The MBA estimates the coverage for the BAS is almost 30 percentrnof the new home sales market.

All Content Copyright © 2003 – 2009 Brown House Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.nReproduction in any form without permission of MortgageNewsDaily.com is prohibited.