Paul Emrath

Paul Emrath, Ph.D., is the vice president for survey and housing policy research for NAHB where his responsibilities include conducting statistical and economic research for NAHB and its local affiliates, as well as managing NAHB’s survey and housing policy departments. The survey department conducts the monthly survey that generates the widely cited NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, as well as special surveys such as the one used to break down construction costs in a new home. The housing policy research department conducts a broad range of policy-related research such as estimating the economic impact of home building and analyzing proposed government regulations changes for NAHB committees and councils. Since joining NAHB in 1992, Dr. Emrath has developed many of the statistical methods NAHB uses to analyze housing data, produced over 700 local impact of home building studies, and published more than 150 articles on a wide variety of housing related topics — twice winning National Investment Center awards for articles on 55+ housing. Prior to joining NAHB, he taught economic theory and statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for four years. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Credit for Builders Tightens as Rates Climb

During the fourth quarter of 2022, credit continued to become less available and generally more costly on loans for Acquisition, Development & Construction (AD&C) according to NAHB’s Survey on AD&C Financing. To analyze credit availability, responses from the NAHB survey are used to construct a net easing index, similar to the net easing index based…

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Material Shortages Ease, With Notable Exceptions

In May of last year, Eye on Housing reported on historically widespread shortages of building materials.  Since then, most of the shortages have eased; the major exceptions being shortages of HVAC equipment and certain categories of ceramic materials (ceramic tiles, clay bricks and cement-based building materials), which have gotten slightly worse. NAHB has been tracking…

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Share of New Homes with Porches Dips Below 64 Percent

Of the roughly 1.1 million single-family homes started in 2021, 63.4 percent came with porches, according to NAHB tabulation of data from the Survey of Construction (SOC, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau with partial funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development). This marks the first time the share of single-family homes with porches has dipped…

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