Eye On Housing
San Francisco, which has been the nation’s least affordable major housing market for the past two years, was supplanted by Los Angeles in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI). In all, 63.2 percent of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of October and end of… Read More ›
As revealed in a previous post, 60% of buyers actively searching for a home to buy in the final quarter of 2019 have been looking – unsuccessfully – for at least three months. Why is it taking these buyers that long to pull the trigger? Once again, the most common reason is they can’t find a home at a price… Read More ›
Of the 11% of American adults considering a home purchase in the final quarter of 2019, only 43% reported being actively engaged in the process to find and buy a home. A year earlier, the comparable share of active buyers was a much stronger 54%. This finding suggests that mortgage interest rates steadily below 4.0% in recent months have not… Read More ›
While home buyers may have slightly more optimistic expectations about future housing availability (see earlier post), there is no improvement in their outlook for affordability. In the fourth quarter of 2019, 79% say they can afford fewer than half the homes available in their markets, which is higher than the 76% with that opinion a year earlier. This marks the… Read More ›
In the final quarter of 2019, home buyers are less likely (65%) to think housing availability will get harder (or stay the same) than in the final quarter of 2018 (72%). Put another way, fewer home buyers expect housing availability to worsen. On the contrary, the share of optimistic buyers expecting an easier home search process in the months ahead… Read More ›
Despite help from the lowest mortgage rates in three years, an NAHB poll* conducted in the third quarter of 2019 shows that a strong majority of prospective home buyers continue to have poor expectations about being able to afford the homes for-sale in their markets. In fact, 80% say they can afford fewer than half the homes currently available where… Read More ›
Only 21% of prospective home buyers (people planning a home purchase) expect that finding the right home to buy will get easier in the months ahead, according to NAHB’s Housing Trends Report for the third quarter 2019. That share is slightly better than the 19% who had the same expectation a year earlier. On the other hand, a majority of… Read More ›
The top 20 builders produced 29.0% of all the homes constructed in the country in 2018, according to data from BUILDER magazine. That share is a notable gain from 2017, when the largest 20 builders were responsible for 26.8% of all completions. Historical data shows a rising trend in the market share of the top 20 builders[1]. In 2000, these… Read More ›
A national poll in the second quarter of 2019 revealed that 12% of adults are thinking about buying a home in the next 12 months. Of that group, 41% are already actively engaged in the process of finding a home to purchase, which is a smaller share than a year earlier, when 50% of prospective buyers were engaged in the… Read More ›
An earlier post revealed that only 12% of adults polled in the second quarter of 2019 are prospective home buyers (they are planning to buy a home in the next year). The poll asked these buyers to estimate the share of homes available for-sale in their markets they believed they could afford. As the graph below shows, affordability expectations are… Read More ›