The prices of goods used in residential construction ex-energy climbed 1.6% in February (not seasonally adjusted), according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Building materials prices increased 20.4%, year-over-year, and have risen 31.3% since January 2020. Over the past five months, the index has climbed 10.6%. The price index…
Ongoing lumber and building material supply-side constraints and rising construction costs and expectations of higher interest rates continue to negatively affect builder sentiment even as buyer demand remains relatively solid. Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes moved two points lower to 79 in March from a downwardly revised reading in February,…
Over the first month of 2022, the total number of single-family permits issued year-to-date (YTD) nationwide reached 83,404. On a year-over-year (YoY) basis, this is a 0.6% decline over the January 2021 level of 83,921. Year-to-date ending in January, single-family permits declined in three out of the four regions. The South posted a small increase…
As described in a previous post, NAHB’s recently released its 2022 Priced-Out Estimates, showing that 87.5 million households are not able to afford a median priced new home, and that an additional 117,932 would be priced out if the price goes up by $1,000. A second post showed the households priced out by higher interest…
The latest results from the Federal Reserve’s Z.1 Financial Accounts of the United States, i.e., the Flow of Funds, show that in 2021, the aggregate market value of all owner-occupied real estate in the United States experienced the largest quarterly increases on record. From $36.8 trillion in the third quarter of 2021, the value of…
Consumer prices continued to break 40-year highs in February due to higher food, gasoline and housing costs. This was the largest year-over-year gain since January 1982. This pace of inflation will likely stay high in the months ahead as Russia-Ukraine crisis continues drive up oil and commodity prices. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported…
In the past month, total mortgage activity, as measured by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Market Composite Index, underwent a series of weekly declines, but increased in the latest week by 8.5 percent. The latest week’s survey is for the week ending March 4. The latest week’s activity consisted of an 8.6 percent increase in…
