Interest for new home construction was essentially unchanged between the final quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, as the share of prospective buyers looking to buy a newly built home barely edged from 20% to 21%. Meanwhile, the share interested in existing homes dropped from 39% to 37% during this period, while the share with no particular preference edged from 41% to 42%.
Interest for new homes changed little from the final quarter of 2022 to the first quarter of 2023 in all regions except the West, where the share rose from 21% to 27%. In the Midwest, the share stayed flat at 15%, while in both the Northeast and South, the share of buyers interested in new construction edged up from 20% to 22% during this period.
* Results come from the Housing Trends Report (HTR) – a research product created by the NAHB Economics team with the goal of measuring prospective home buyers’ perceptions about the availability and affordability of homes for-sale in their markets. The HTR is produced quarterly to track changes in buyers’ perceptions over time. All data are derived from national polls of representative samples of American adults conducted for NAHB by Morning Consult. Results are seasonally adjusted. A description of the poll’s methodology and sample characteristics can be found here. This is the second in a series of six posts highlighting results for the 1st quarter of 2023. See previous post on plans to buy.