Although rent control policies do, in fact, produce lower rents in the controlled units as intended, these policies also have a number of unintended and undesirable consequences, according to a recently published review of the academic literature. Among the unintended consequences are a reduced supply...
Today’s jobs report and the newly released preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicate that the U.S. labor market is slowing from its overheated state in 2021 and 2022 but remains stable. Among all sectors, construction led the August job gains, adding 34,000 jobs to...
Mortgage rates continued to decrease in August, landing at an average rate of 6.50%. According to Freddie Mac, the average monthly rate fell by 35 basis points (bps) from July’s rate of 6.85%. The August rate is down 57 bps from one year ago, which...
The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) weekly survey, saw a month-over-month increase of 10.7% on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis. Compared to last August, the index increased by 20.8%. While the Purchase Index declined...
House price appreciation was recorded in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Limited resale inventory and strong growth in demand continued to put upward pressure on house prices. Nationally, house prices grew at a relatively slower pace, compared to double-digit annual growth during...
Due to slowing home construction and elevated interest rates, the count of open construction sector jobs continued to decline in July, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). However, this shift lower is also consistent with a cooler overall...
In 2022, the total count of second homes was 6.5 million representing 4.6% of the total housing stock, according to NAHB estimates. This reflects a decline from 2020, when the number of second homes stood at 7.15 million. As of 2022, the state with the...
Private residential construction spending fell 0.4% in July, according to the Census Construction Spending data. Nevertheless, spending remained 7.7% higher compared to a year ago. The monthly decline in total private construction spending for July was largely due to reduced spending on single-family construction. Spending...
Despite high mortgage rates, the lack of resale homes and pent-up demand drove solid growth in single-family permits across nearly all regions in the second quarter. In contrast, multifamily construction permit activity experienced declines across all regions for the second quarter of 2024. These trends...
The cost per square foot of a single-family home declines systematically as the home becomes larger, according to NAHB analysis of two recent data sources. In microeconomics, unit costs that decline as a business operation increases in size are called economies of scale. In home...
Median square foot prices (excluding record-high improved lot values) for new single-family detached (SFD) homes started in 2023 remained largely stable, according to NAHB’s analysis of the latest Survey of Construction data. For custom, or contractor-built, homes, the median price was $162 per square foot...
The percentage of new apartment units that were absorbed within three months of completion rose from a decade low 42% to 53% in the first quarter of 2024, according to the Census Bureau’s latest release of the Survey of Market Absorption of New Multifamily Units...
NAHB analyzed the national market share data released by BUILDER Magazine in a previous blog post. Last month, BUILDER Magazine released new data on the top 10 home builders within each of the 50 largest new home markets in the U.S. (ranked by single-family permits)...
The average completion time of a single-family house in 2023 was approximately 10.1 months, breaking down to 1.5 months for authorization to start construction and another 8.6 months to finish construction. According to the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction, the permit-to-completion time has been on...
Home price growth continues to decelerate, according to the recent release of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index (HPI). The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller HPI increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.89% for June 2024, slowing from a revised rate of 3.28% in...
A majority of single-family homes started in 2023 continued to have two full bathrooms according to the latest release of the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction. According to the latest data, 64.7% of new single-family homes started in 2023 had two full bathrooms, 23.8% had...
Analysis of the history of data from the American Community Survey (ACS) reveals dramatic shifts in the makeup of the construction labor force over the last two decades. While the overall count of workers in the industry now approaches the historic highs of the housing...
The share of new homes with patios increased to yet another record high in 2023. Of the roughly 950,000 single-family homes started during the year, 63.7% came with patios. This is up from 63.3% in 2022 and marks the eighth consecutive year the percentage set...
