Eye On Housing
Despite Weekly Declines, Refinancing Year-over-year Gains Remain Strong
For the week ending September 11, 2020, the Mortgage Banker’s Association’s (MBA) Weekly Application Survey indicated a decrease in its Market Composite Index, a measure of both purchasing and refinancing, of 2.5% from one week earlier on a seasonally adjusted basis. The Purchasing and Refinancing Indexes decreased by 0.5% and 3.7%, respectively. The survey’s tracked 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate remained… Read More ›
Recent Posts
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How Many Homes are Concrete-Framed?
We know lumber prices are up more than 170% since mid-April as of mid-September. As housing has rebounded, the lack of lumber has materialized as a key weak spot for housing supply. With that in mind, what’s the market share of alternative framing methods? For better or worse, wood framing remains the dominant construction method for single-family homes in the… Read More ›
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Weekly Initial Jobless Claims and Continuing Claims Decrease
According to the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report released by the U.S. Department of Labor today, weekly initial jobless claims decreased during the week ending September 12, and continuing claims, which lag initial jobless claims by one week, decreased as well for the week ending September 5. The data indicate that labor market improves modestly, but the road to a… Read More ›
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Single-Family Starts Expand in August
Single-family starts showed continued growth in August but overall housing production fell 5.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.42 million units due to a double-digit percentage decline in multifamily production, according to data from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development and Commerce Departments. The pace of single-family starts in August was the highest production rate since February…. Read More ›
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Builder Confidence Soars to an All-Time High, Lumber Risks Remain
In a strong signal that housing is leading the economic recovery, builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes increased five points to hit an all-time high of 83 in September, according to the latest NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The previous highest reading of 78 in the 35-year history of the series was set last month and… Read More ›
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Single-Story Home Construction Continued to Increase in 2019
Information obtained from the US Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC) and tabulated by NAHB, shows that the share of two or more stories homes started is greater than one story homes in 2019, although the share of two-story homes decreased slightly in 2019. The greatest concentrations of two-or- more story homes were in divisions along the coasts of the… Read More ›
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Strong Year-over-Year Gains for July Single-Family Permits
Over the first seven months of 2020, total single-family permits issued year-to-date (YTD) nationwide reached 525,623. On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, this is an 5.8% increase over the July 2019 level of 496,726. Year-to-date ending in July, single-family permits across the four regions ranged from an increase of 8.6% in the South to a decline of 1.7% in the Northeast…. Read More ›
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Multifamily Construction Gains for Lower-Density Markets
The Q2 2020 NAHB Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) reveals a notable multifamily construction shift to the suburbs/exurbs. This is similar to HBGI findings reported for single-family construction. A driver of this broader impact is COVID-19, which thus far has had larger impacts on higher density neighborhoods. These geographic changes will ultimately generate market share gains for smaller multifamily structures,… Read More ›
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Good News for Women in Construction: Employment Rising
The number of women employed in the construction industry grew substantially in 2019 rising to around 1.2 million, surpassing the peak of pre-recession employment level. As the construction skilled labor shortage remains a key challenge, adding new workers is an important goal of the industry. Bringing additional women into the construction labor force represents a potential opportunity for the future…. Read More ›
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Largest Four-Month Lumber Price Increase in 70 Years Outweighs Other Price Declines in August
Prices paid for goods used in residential construction continued their upward trend in August, increasing 0.9% (not seasonally adjusted) according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is the fourth consecutive monthly increase since the index declined three months straight and brings the index back to its pre-pandemic level. Prices of… Read More ›