Joel Kan, MBA vice president and deputy chief economist, credited a slight decline in mortgage rates as one of the factors to boosting applications.
“Purchase activity for new homes strengthened in July as both mortgage applications and estimated new home sales reached their highest levels since April 2025,” Kan said. “Applications were boosted by borrowers looking to take advantage of slightly lower mortgage rates during the month and higher levels of newly built inventory. This likely helped to improve affordability, as many builders are still offering concessions to buyers. Additionally, the average loan size continued to trend lower.”
Home sales increasing
The MBA report also noted a 2.7% increase in home sales in July from the previous month. Single-family home sales were reported at a seasonally-adjusted rate of 685,000 units in the month.
On an unadjusted basis, there were an estimated 58,000 new home sales in July, a 5.5% increase from June’s numbers.
Conventional loans continued to make up the majority of loans, although just barely. In July, 50.1% of loan applications were conventional. FHA loans made up 35.3%, VA loans were 13.4%, while RHS/USDA loans were 1.2%.