Mortgage News for the Week of June 26, 2020
New Home Sales Surged in May as Buyers Scrambled to Find Properties for Purchase
The numbers: Sales of newly-built single-family houses occurred at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 676,000 in May,  the government reported Tuesday.

That represented a 16.6% increase from the downwardly-revised pace of 580,000 in April. Compared with the previous year, new home sales were up 12.7% in May.

Analysts polled by MarketWatch had forecast new-home sales to occur at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 650,000 in May.
Weekly Homebuyer Mortgage Demand Ticks Down But is Still a Remarkable 18% Higher Than a Year Ago
  • Total mortgage application volume fell 8.7% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
  • Homebuyer demand for mortgages fell 3% for the week but was 18% higher than a year ago. 
  • Applications to refinance a home loan fell 12% for the week but were 76% higher than the same week in in 2019.
Existing Home Sales Plunge in May, But Realtors Think That Was the Bottom
  • Existing home sales plummeted in May as the coronavirus continued to hammer the economy, but Realtors expect that it will represent the bottom.
  • Sales of existing homes in May fell 9.7% compared with April, to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 3.91 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.
  • Sales were down 26.6% annually. That is the largest annual decline since 1982, when interest rates were about 18%. It is also the slowest sales pace since October 2010.
The V-shaped Recovery Continues for Housing Market
On Wednesday, purchase application data confirmed a full V-shaped recovery in the housing market. 

I wanted to see four straight weeks of double-digit year over year growth before I officially used the term “V-Shaped Recovery”, because that proves a continuation of the trend in purchase applications from the time B.C. (Before Coronavirus).

We achieved that. This has been the hottest four-week period of double-digit growth we have seen in a while when compared to the same time last year.  Read more from Housing Wire.
Home Price Gains Defied The Odds in April
House prices continued to be unfazed by the current economic upheaval. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reports that its U.S. House Price Index for April, the first full month that reflects the impact of the pandemic, continued to rise almost unabated.

The index increased by 0.2 percent from March compared to a 0.1 percent increase from February to March. On an annual basis the index rose 5.5 percent, down slightly from the 5.7 percent gain in both February and March. Read more from Mortgage News Daily.
Interest in Single-Family Homes Hits Four-Year High
Web searches for single-family homes have popped as the coronavirus pandemic has turned privacy into a hot commodity.
Online searches for single-family homes rose to the highest level in four years last month. This comes as the coronavirus pandemic drives buyers to seek out larger houses located  farther  away from dense urban areas.

In May, 36% of  saved searches  created by Redfin.com users filtered exclusively for single-family homes. That’s up from 33% in February—before the coronavirus was known to be widespread in the U.S.—and represents the largest share since March 2016. It also marks an increase from 28% in May 2019. Read more from Redfin.
Mortgage Market Update
Mortgage Rates Remain Flat
After the Great Recession, it took more than ten years for purchase demand to rebound to pre-recession levels, but in this crisis, it took less than ten weeks. The rebound in purchase demand partly reflects deferred sales as well as continued interest from prospective buyers looking to take advantage of the low mortgage rate environment.
We hope you enjoyed this week's Market News. For more information about how PMA can help you, please contact us.
Plymouth Meeting Office: 610.834.8700
Doylestown Office: 215.345.7600
Ocean City, NJ Office: 609.398.8600

Information and analysis is obtained through third parties and is deemed accurate but not guaranteed. Philadelphia Mortgage Advisors is a licensed mortgage lender by the PA Dept. of Banking and Securities, NJ Dept. of Banking & Insurance, the state of DE, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, MD Mortgage Lender #23004 and VA State Corporation Commission #MC - 6797. NMLS #128570.
Follow us on social media!
Recent Economic Data
PMA &  PHFA / NJHMFA  can make it easier for first-time buyers to purchase a home!
0 Down VA Loans
are Easier with PMA's 
In-House Approvals!