Up 19 percent on a year-over-year basis in January, mortgage application volume for new home purchases in the U.S. only ticked up a (1) percent from January to February. And while 15.7 percent higher than at the same time last year, the below average seasonally-driven uptick from January to February actually resulted in a 1.6 percent drop in the seasonally adjusted pace of new home sales, based on loan application data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
At the same time, while the average loan size for new home purchases, which is correlated with pricing, ticked up from $401,282 in January to $405,719 in February, again, with typical seasonality in play, it was down from $406,953 in February of last year and below its high of $436,576 in April of 2022, with inventory levels ticking and over 40 percent higher than prior to the pandemic and nearing a 15-year high, despite continued misreporting of “supply constraints,” as is the case locally for existing inventory.