By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
Despite the usual holiday lull in overall mortgage applications, the demand for newly constructed homes increased in December. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Builder Applications Survey (BAS) found those applications were up 18 percent from November. The change does not include any adjustment for typical seasonal patterns. The applications were 7.8 percent higher than in December 2016.
Based on data from the BAS, conducted among mortgage subsidiaries of new home builders, augmented by assumptions about market coverage and other factors, MBA estimates new single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 554,000 units in December. This is a decline of 16.4 percent from the November pace of 663,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, there were an estimated 40,000 units sold, down 14.9 percent from 47,000 new home sales in November.
