The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Builder Application Survey data for February found that mortgage applications for new-home purchases rose 12 percent from January.
MBA said applications were up year-over-year in January and February to start 2015.
“An increase in mortgage applications to builders in February over strong January numbers bodes well for new home purchases this year,” MBA Vice President of Research and Economics Lynn Fisher said in a news release.
The survey found that conventional loans comprised 65.4 percent of loan applications, with Federal Housing Authority loans at 20.7 percent, Veteran’s Administration loans at 12.7 percent, and U.S. Department of Agriculture loans at 1.2 percent.
The average loan size of new homes increased to $311,379 in February from $304,364 a month earlier.
On a seasonally adjusted annual basis, MBA estimated that new single-family home sales were at 487,000 units in February, a drop of 8.1 percent from January.
On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimated there were 42,000 new-home sales in February, up 7.7 percent from January.
The survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders across the country. Using this data, as well as data from other sources, MBA provides an early estimate of new-home sales volumes at the national, state, and metro level.
Official new-home sales estimates are conducted by the Census Bureau on a monthly basis. In that data, new-home sales are recorded at contract signing, which typically coincides with the mortgage application.