September New Home Sales Flat According to Applications Data

Applications for mortgages with which to purchase new homes in September were essential unchanged in volume from August the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said on Thursday.  The information, from the MBA, Builder Application Survey (BAS), was extrapolated to indicate that new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 425,000 units in September.  This was up 0.2 percent from the August estimate of 424,000 units. 

Unadjusted data from the survey showed a much larger shift and in the opposite direction.  MBA estimated a total of 32,000 new homes sold during the month which was 5.9 percent below the estimate of 34,000 new homes sold in August.

The BAS tracks application volume as reported by mortgage subsidiaries of home builders nationwide.  MBA uses this data and data from other sources to provide an early estimate of new home sales and the types of loans used by their buyers.  Official new home sales estimates are provided by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development from data recorded at purchase contract signing which MBA says is typically coincident with the mortgage application.

Last month, based on a 9 percent decrease in new home purchase applications, MBA had projected August new home sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 424,000, a decrease of 2.1 percent from July.  The Census Bureau report for the month, issued two weeks later, indicated an unexpected surge in sales of 18 percent for the month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 504,000 units. 

Mike Fratantoni, MBA's chief economist, addressed that discrepancy in today's press release.  "Through our Builder Application Survey, MBA has been providing the market with an early read on new home sales activity for over a year now.  Our data has been tracking that of the Census Bureau closely, with a few exceptions.  Earlier this summer, and again last month, the first estimates from Census were significantly higher than the estimates implied from the applications data.  However, the revised data from Census resulted in a much closer match to MBA's estimates, and we anticipate that will be the case going forward, given the high rate of coverage in our survey."

MBA said that 67.6 percent of the loan applications in September were for conventional loans and FHA loans composed 16.7 percent.  VA loans had a 14.5 percent share and 1.2 percent were loans from USDA's Rural Housing Service. The average loan size decreased from $300,443 in August to $298,274 in September.