A survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) revealed this week that Nov. 2016 saw a 12 percent increase in mortgage applications over the previous year.
This was tempered somewhat by a 3 percent decrease relative to Oct. 2016, but the Builder Applications Survey data does indicate a long-term increase in home buying.
“Mortgage applications for new homes continued to grow on a year over year basis in November, driven by continued improvement in the overall economy and job growth,” Lynn Fisher, MBA’s vice president of research and economics, said. “Despite the fact that overall home prices have increased at a greater than 5 percent annualized rate, the growth in average loan size for new homes has slowed, increasing 3 percent in November to $329,400 from a year ago and up just 1 percent since January.”
Breaking things down to actual property, the MBA estimates there were 41,000 new homes sold in November, compared to 44,000 in October. Conventional loans made up 67.3 percent of loan applications during this period, while FHA loans composed 18.3 percent, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.7 percent and VA loans composed 13.8 percent.
In additional good news, the average loan size for new homes actually decreased a few hundred dollars over that month, down from $329,634 to $329,389.