Eye On Housing
Single-Family Starts Post Slight Gain in August
The pace of single-family starts posted a slight gain in August, albeit over downwardly revised estimates of the rate of July construction. Nonetheless, the three-month moving average for single-family starts is at a post-recession high of 849,000 as the gradual recovery in home building continues. Total starts declined almost 1% in August to a 1.180 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to the… Read More ›
Recent Posts
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Builder Confidence Drops As Hurricanes Add Uncertainty
Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes fell three points to a level of 64 in September from a downwardly revised August reading of 67 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The recent hurricanes have intensified our members’ concerns about the availability of labor and the cost of building materials. Despite this… Read More ›
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Inflation Accelerated in August
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that its seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index – Urban Consumer (CPI) rose by 0.4 percent over the month of August, a significant acceleration from the 0.1 percent month-over-month increase in July. Prices of energy commodities, gasoline in particular, rose by 6.1 percent over the month after treading flat in July. At the same… Read More ›
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How New Home Buyers Financed Their Homes in 2016
NAHB analysis of the 2016 Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC) data shows that reliance on non-conventional forms of financing varied across the United States, with its share exceeding 37% in the South Atlantic division but accounting for less than 20% of new single-family home starts in the East South Central and East North Central divisions. Nationwide, the share of… Read More ›
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Softwood Lumber, OSB Lead August Price Increases
The prices of softwood lumber, OSB, and ready-mix concrete increased by 2.5%, 2.9%, and 0.5%, respectively, in August according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In contrast, the price paid for gypsum fell 0.6%, its first monthly decline since May. Softwood lumber prices rose for the second consecutive month the 3.0% decrease in June. … Read More ›
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Over 60 Percent of Construction Firms Are Profitable Ventures
According to recently released data from the Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs (ASE), 61.3 percent of American construction firms are profitable commercial enterprises. The differences between construction and businesses in other industries in this regard are relatively minor. As Exhibit 1 shows, the shares of construction businesses recording positive profits, breaking even, and sustaining losses are all within 1.2 percentage points of the averages across all U.S. industries. The… Read More ›
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Construction Job Openings Rise During Summer
The count of unfilled jobs in the construction sector continued to rise in July, following an increase in June and a soft month in May. Given the significant need for repair and restoration work in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, we can expect additional increases in the months ahead. NAHB, for example, estimates a need for an additional 10,000 to 20,000 construction… Read More ›
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A Deeper Look at Rent-Burdened Households
Households paying 30 percent of more in rent, a threshold long used by the federal government to identify “rent-burdened” households, has been a significant housing issue for some time. Nearly half of renter households (48 percent) in the U.S. were rent-burdened in 2015.[1] The large share of rent-burdened households is a symptom of the broader affordability problem in the housing… Read More ›
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Sources of Home Buyers and New Renters
According to NAHB’s latest special study, households who recently changed addresses fall into a natural order: 1) Buyers of Newer Homes, 2) Buyers of Older Homes, 3) Renters of Newer Homes, and 4) Renters of Older Homes, As you move up the scale from 4 to 1, the following interrelated tendencies become evident: The movers have, on average, higher incomes. More of… Read More ›
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Custom and Spec Home Market Shares in 2016
NAHB’s analysis of the most recent Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC) shows that custom home building registered declining market shares across most US regions in 2016. The sharpest drop in the custom home share of new single-family starts took place in the East South Central division, from 35% to 27%. The two exceptions are the Mountain and Pacific divisions… Read More ›