March new home mortgage applications increased 5.5%

Compared to last month, applications increased by 14%. By product type, conventional loans composed 49.0% of loan applications, FHA loans composed 37.0%, RHS/USDA loans composed 0.9% and VA loans composed 13%.

The average loan size for new homes decreased from $397,516 in February to $381,921 in March.

“Applications for new home purchases increased in March, consistent with typical seasonal patterns and supported by mortgage rates that had been drifting lower,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist. “The growing inventory of newly built, move-in-ready homes supported homebuyer interest over the month, pushing the index higher than last year’s levels. Our estimate of seasonally adjusted new home sales saw a slight decline in March but were stronger than last year’s pace of sales.”

Using mortgage application information from the BAS, MBA estimates new single-family home sales, which has consistently been a leading indicator of the U.S. Census Bureau’s New Residential Sales report, were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 629,000 units in March 2025.

The seasonally adjusted estimate for March is a decrease of 0.8% from the February pace of 634,000 units. On an unadjusted basis, MBA estimates that there were 61,000 new home sales in March 2025, an increase of 7% from 57,000 new home sales in February.