New home purchases in November 2020 increased 34.7% from a year ago, but new home applications decreased from October, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association builder application survey.

New home applications decreased 16% from October, said Joel Kan, MBA associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting.

“November new home sales activity, both mortgage applications and home sales, ran at a pace considerably ahead of 2019, showing the ongoing strong growth in housing demand and new residential construction,” Kan said. “Signs of a slowdown in the economic recovery likely contributed to the expected monthly decrease in activity.”  

The average loan size of new homes increased from $355,684 in October to $357,554 in November, according to the survey.

New, single-family home sales were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 827,000 units in November 2020, based on data from the survey. The seasonally adjusted estimate for November is a decrease of 10.8% from the October pace of 927,000 units.

On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates that there were 59,000 new home sales in November 2020, a decrease of 15.7% from 70,000 new home sales in October. 

Conventional loans composed 71.8% of loan applications, FHA loans composed 16.8%, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.9 % and VA loans composed 10.4%