National Association of Home Builders Economic Research Blog

Existing Home Sales Retreat Amid Low Inventory
Existing Home Sales Retreat Amid Low Inventory
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Existing home sales fell in January to a more than two-year low after December’s strong rebound, as tight inventory continued to push home prices higher and winter storms weighed on ...
Residential Building Worker Wages Slow in 2025 Amid Cooling Housing Activity
Residential Building Worker Wages Slow in 2025 Amid Cooling Housing Activity
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Wage growth for residential building workers moderated notably in 2025, reflecting a broader cooling in housing activity and construction labor demand. According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau ...
Low-Rise Multifamily Shows Strength at End of 2025; Other Segments Weak
Low-Rise Multifamily Shows Strength at End of 2025; Other Segments Weak
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Even though garden/low-rise continues to be strong, overall confidence in the market for new multifamily housing decreased year-over-year in the fourth quarter, according to the Multifamily Market Survey (MMS) released ...
Job Growth Starts Year on Strong Note: However, 2025 Revisions Offer Caution
Job Growth Starts Year on Strong Note: However, 2025 Revisions Offer Caution
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The U.S. labor market began 2026 at a surprisingly strong pace, while newly released benchmark revisions show that job growth in 2025 was considerably weaker than previously reported. Nonfarm payrolls ...
Credit Card Balances Rise in Q4 2025 
Credit Card Balances Rise in Q4 2025 
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Overall consumer credit continued to expand in the fourth quarter of 2025, with growth in both nonrevolving and revolving credit. Nonrevolving credit, primarily student and auto loans, accounts for 74% ...
Weaker Demand, Unchanged Lending Conditions for Residential Mortgages in Fourth Quarter
Weaker Demand, Unchanged Lending Conditions for Residential Mortgages in Fourth Quarter
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Lending standards for most types of residential mortgages were essentially unchanged but overall demand was weaker in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the recent release of the Senior ...
Lower Rates Lift Mortgage Activity at Start of the Year
Lower Rates Lift Mortgage Activity at Start of the Year
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Mortgage application activity rose sharply in January, driven primarily by a surge in refinancing activity as mortgage rates declined to a new low. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Market Composite ...
The Size of the Housing Shortage: 2024 Data
The Size of the Housing Shortage: 2024 Data
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Persistently low homeowner and rental vacancy rates indicate that the U.S. housing market remains structurally undersupplied. Comparing 2024 abnormally low vacancy rates with long-run equilibrium levels across U.S. metropolitan markets, ...
Job Openings Fall as Labor Market Weakens
Job Openings Fall as Labor Market Weakens
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Running counter to the data for the full economy, the count of open, unfilled positions in the construction industry increased in December, per the delayed Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings ...
Builders’ Top Challenges for 2026
Builders’ Top Challenges for 2026
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The most significant challenge builders faced in 2025 was high interest rates, as reported by 84% of builders in the latest NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index survey.  A smaller, albeit still ...
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Nationally, across the 86 million owner-occupied homes in the U.S., the average annual real estate taxes paid in 2023 was $4,112, according to NAHB analysis of the 2023 American Community Survey. Homeowners in New Jersey continued to pay the highest real estate taxes, paying an...

Prices for inputs to new residential construction—excluding capital investment, labor, and imports—decreased 0.6% in September according to the most recent Producer Price Index (PPI) report published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compared to a year ago, this index was down 0.1% in September...

Residential improvement spending softened in 2023 due to elevated interest rates, high inflation, and sluggish home sales. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), expenditures for residential home improvements rose 2% to $363 billion in 2023, from $356 billion...

Inflation continued to ease in September and remained at a 3-year low as shelter costs continued to moderate. Shelter costs, the main driver of inflation since early 2023, saw their annual growth rate fall below 5% for the first time since February 2022. With the...

The NAHB/Westlake Royal Remodeling Market Index (RMI) for the third quarter of 2024 posted a reading of 63, down two points compared to the previous quarter. Remodelers remain optimistic about the market even though the overall RMI edged down for the third consecutive quarter. Some...

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 49 states and the District of Columbia in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2024 according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Alaska reported an economic contraction during this time. The...

Approximately 2.3 million tax returns filed for tax year 2023 utilized the Energy Efficient Home Improvement credit (25C tax credit), according to the latest IRS clean energy tax credit statistics. Through May 23rd of the 2024 tax filing season for 2023 returns, almost 138 million...

Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 32 states in August compared to the previous month, while 17 states and the District of Columbia saw a decrease. Kansas reported no change. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationwide total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 142,000 in...

While the share of new homes with patios continues to climb, the share with decks has hovered at a historic low of under 18%, according to NAHB tabulation of data from the HUD/Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC). Every year from the re-design of the...

New manufactured homes saw a decline in shipments in 2023 compared to the previous year. According to the Manufactured Housing Survey (MHS), 89,169 manufactured homes were shipped in 2023, a decrease of 21% from the 112,882 homes shipped in 2022. The Census defines a manufactured...

NAHB published research earlier this year on home buyer preferences called What Home Buyers Really Want. Consumers were asked to rate how 19 technology features would influence their home purchase decision, if at all, using the following four-point scale: Seventy-eight percent of home buyers rated...

The September jobs report indicates that the U.S. labor market remains strong. Job growth accelerated, and the unemployment rate fell to a three-month low of 4.1%. Meanwhile, job growth for the previous two months (July and August) was upwardly revised. In September, wage growth accelerated...

In 2023, 66% of newly completed single-family homes featured two-car garages, according to NAHB’s analysis of the Census’s Survey of Construction data. This was the most common parking option across all Census divisions. By Census division, South Atlantic had the highest share of two-car garages...

With housing being a key issue for the 2024 election cycle, it is worth analyzing distinct characteristics as well as similarities that housing markets in congressional districts share. The differences start with a substantial variation in homeownership rates across congressional districts. While the 2023 American...

In 2023, a quarter of new homes were built with a two-story foyer, down slightly from 26% in 2022, according to data obtained from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC) and tabulated by NAHB. The market share of two-story foyers has been generally trending...

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) weekly survey, rose 18.4% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis, driven primarily by a surge in refinancing activity. Compared to September 2023, the index increased by 47%....

Private residential construction spending fell 0.3% in August, according to the Census Construction Spending data. Nevertheless, it remained 2.7% higher compared to a year ago. The monthly decline in total private construction spending for August was largely due to reduced spending on single-family and multifamily...

After a period of slowing associated with declines for some elements of residential construction, the count of open construction sector jobs bounced back in the August data, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). However, construction job openings remain...

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