Mortgage Purchase Applications, New Home Sales

Each day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses mortgage purchase applications, durable goods, and new home sales.

• Mortgage applications continued the up-and-down trajectory of the past weeks, rising 4.9 percent during the week ending October 21, after declining the previous week.
• The Purchase Index advanced 6.4 percent from the prior week. The Refinance index rose 4.4 percent, as interest rates on 30-year fixed mortgages remained level at 4.33 percent.
• Cash purchases—which have been steady at 30 percent of transactions—were not captured in the data.
• The Census’ latest report on Manufacturers’ durable goods orders, shipments and inventories points to a slowdown in industrial production.
• New orders declined in September—for the third month of the last four—0.8 percent, to $200.3 billion.
• Transportation equipment, which drove this year’s gains, declined the most—$4.0 billion.
• The other goods to post noticeable declines were aircraft and parts (both defense and nondefense).
• Businesses remain on a path of ramping up inventory levels, reaching new records.  Inventories of durable goods rose 0.1 percent, to $365.6 billion—the highest level since the Census started publishing the series on a NAICS basis.
• Shipments of durable goods declined 0.7 percent in September, to $200.1 billion.
• In another report, the Census Bureau reported that new house sales declined 2.3 percent in August from July, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295.000 units.
• New home sales were 6.1 percent higher than the same month last year.
• The median price of a new house sold in August 2011 was $209,100, an 8.6 percent drop from July of this year and 7.7 percent lower year-over-year.
• The supply of new homes was at 6.6 months in August.