Buyer Financing More Conventional

The share of conventional loans for all new-home sales in the fourth quarter of 2018 was 76.9 percent, a 10-year high, per new analysis of Census data.

Over the previous quarter, conventional loans grew 2.4 percent, and National Association of Home Builders analysis find that the share increase followed rising rates at the end of last year. The new data marks the first time in a decade that conventional loans financed more than 75 percent of new-home sales. In each of the last 10 quarters, the share has been more than 71 percent.

The increase of conventional loan market share ate into that of FHA-backed mortgages which fell 2.3 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2018. At 11.5 percent, the share of new home sales financed with FHA-backed mortgages is 5.7 percentage points below its most recent peak and less than half its cycle high of 27.6 percent.

Cash purchases accounted for 7,000 new home purchases—5.4 percent of total new home sales—as the share of new home sales backed by VA products increased 2.1 percentage points to 6.9 percent of the total.

Read more