Eye On Housing
On an annual basis, total nonfarm employment in January increased by 2.8 million jobs, which is a 1.9% increase compared to January 2018. During this time, total nonfarm employment in the Western region increased by 1.9% and in the Southern region by 1.8%. The Midwest and the Northeast recorded the lowest gains at 1.0% during this time. According to the… Read More ›
Upward revisions to December and November data resulted in a 6.9% decline for new single-family homes sales in January, according to data from the joint release of HUD and the Census Bureau. The seasonally adjusted annualized January pace of 607,000 was 4.1% lower than January of 2018; however, combined with lower mortgage interest rates, the first monthly rate for 2019 establishes a solid… Read More ›
An elevated rental share of multifamily construction is holding typical apartment size below levels seen during the pre-Great Recession period. As multifamily developers build more for-sale housing units in the years ahead, the average size of multifamily homes is likely to rise. According to fourth quarter 2018 data, the average per unit square footage of multifamily housing construction starts was 1,136, off from the… Read More ›
The number of single-family homes built-for-rent increased over the course of 2018, as construction starts of this type of housing totaled 43,000 homes, compared to 37,000 for 2017. There were 10,000 single-family built-for-rent starts for the final quarter of 2018. According to data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design and NAHB analysis, the market share of single-family… Read More ›
NAHB’s analysis of Census Data from the Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design survey indicates custom home building was effectively flat over the course of 2018. There were 36,000 total custom starts for the fourth quarter of 2018. This was down compared to the final quarter of 2017 (40,000). Over the course of 2018, custom housing starts totaled 170,000. This… Read More ›
Continuing a multiyear trend, new single-family home size decreased during the final quarter of 2018. According to fourth quarter 2018 data from the Census Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design and NAHB analysis, median single-family square floor area ticked down to 2,316 square feet. Average (mean) square footage for new single-family homes increased to 2,567 square feet. On a less volatile one-year moving average,… Read More ›
According to NAHB analysis of the most recent Census data of Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design, townhouse construction posted outperformed other building sectors over the course of 2018. However, like other submarkets, townhouse construction softened during the fourth quarter. Nonetheless, townhouse construction is set for further expansion given the demographics of renters entering the for-sale market, as well as… Read More ›
Of the 848,000 single-family homes started in the U.S. in 2017, roughly 79,000 were nonmetropolitan—that is, they were built outside one of the officially-defined metropolitan areas—as reported in a recent NAHB study, At 79,000, nonmetropolitan single-family starts were up 40 percent from the trough in 2011, compared to a 97 percent for single-family starts overall. The NAHB study is based on territory… Read More ›
The volume of residential construction loans decreased 0.2% during the fourth quarter of 2018, ending a period of 22 consecutive quarters of growth. While the decline was small, the slowdown in the stock of lending for development purposes mirrors a recent NAHB survey finding neutral conditions for AD&C lending as interest rates increased. Tight availability of acquisition, development and construction (AD&C) loans has been a limiting… Read More ›
Despite a period of weakness during the Fall of 2018, new home sales ended 2018 up 1.5% compared to the total for 2017. Contracts for new, single-family home sales increased almost 4% to a 621,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate according to estimates from the joint release of HUD and the Census Bureau. However, the surprisingly strong initially reported November pace was revised down from a… Read More ›