NAHB’s analysis of Census Data from the Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design survey indicates year-over year growth for custom home builders amid broader single-family home building weakness. The custom building market is less sensitive to the interest rate cycle than other forms of home building but is more sensitive to changes in household wealth…
Single-family housing starts posted a modest gain in July as builders continue to contend with challenging housing affordability conditions and a host of supply-side headwinds, including labor shortages, elevated construction costs and inefficient regulatory costs. Led by solid multifamily production, overall housing starts increased 5.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.43…
Both real and nominal wage growth for residential building workers slowed during the second quarter of 2025, reflecting a broader cooling in the construction labor market, according to the latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In nominal terms, average hourly earnings (AHE) for residential building workers rose to $39.35 in June…
Elevated mortgage rates, weak buyer traffic and ongoing supply-side challenges continued to act as a drag on builder confidence in August, as sentiment levels remain in a holding pattern at a low level. Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes was 32 in August, down one point from July, according to the…
Single-family housing permits continued a downhill trend for the sixth month in a row. The continuous decline in single-family permits highlights persistently weak housing demand, tied to affordability challenges like high mortgage rates. Builders appear cautious amid economic uncertainty, labor constraints, and rising inventories. The uptick in multi-family permits suggests a potentially stabilizing trend, though…
For the fourteenth consecutive quarter, builders and developers reported tighter credit conditions on loans for residential Land Acquisition, Development & Construction (AD&C) in NAHB’s quarterly survey on AD&C Financing. In the second quarter of 2025, the NAHB survey’s net easing index posted a reading of -12.3 (the negative number indicating that credit tightened since…
Prices for residential building materials rose again in July, marking the largest year-over-year increase in over two years. The underlying price growth trend remained the same, with service prices continuing to grow at a faster pace than goods prices. Similar to last month, parts for construction machinery and metal molding/trim experienced significant price growth, as…
