National Association of Home Builders Economic Research Blog

Cyclical Weakness for Townhouse Construction
Cyclical Weakness for Townhouse Construction
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First quarter 2026 data reveal softer conditions for townhouse construction volume as housing affordability challenges affect homebuyer demand. According to NAHB analysis of the most recent Census data of Starts and ...
Single-Family Home Size Posts Small Gains
Single-Family Home Size Posts Small Gains
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New single-family home size had been falling since 2015 in response to declining affordability conditions. An exception occurred in 2021, when new home size increased as interest rates reached historic ...
Single-Family Starts Fall Amid Economic Uncertainty and Affordability Pressures
Single-Family Starts Fall Amid Economic Uncertainty and Affordability Pressures
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Single-family housing starts declined in April as builders faced continued economic uncertainty and affordability challenges, including higher construction costs, ongoing labor shortages and elevated financing expenses. The latest housing starts ...
Housing Affordability Edges Up in First Quarter but Challenges Persist
Housing Affordability Edges Up in First Quarter but Challenges Persist
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While housing affordability remains out of reach for millions of Americans, particularly first-time and entry-level buyers, conditions have improved modestly in the last year, according to the latest data from ...
What It Takes to Leave Parental Home
What It Takes to Leave Parental Home
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As of 2024, one in five adults aged 25-34 lives with parents or in-laws. NAHB’s analysis of the latest American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) evaluates a ...
Who Drives Remodeling Spending?
Who Drives Remodeling Spending?
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Residential remodeling is an important and growing sector of the housing market, particularly as elevated mortgage rates and limited housing inventory encourage many homeowners to improve their existing homes rather ...
Builder Sentiment Posts Gain in May but Significant Affordability Challenges Persist
Builder Sentiment Posts Gain in May but Significant Affordability Challenges Persist
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Builder confidence posted a modest gain in May even as buyers grapple with rising mortgage rates and economic uncertainty while builders continue to contend with elevated land, labor and construction ...
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As the U.S. economy struggles under the burden of the coronavirus pandemic, economists are discussing how a recovery might unfold once social distancing and other measures begin to succeed.  A recent NAHB article illustrates the role home building can play in a recovery by generating...

Home building in the 2010s was a story of the Long Recovery. After the Great Recession, the number of home builders declined significantly, and housing production was unable to meet buyer demand. This deficit of housing in the United States continues to exist because of...

According to a recent NAHB study, although use of some factory-produced components like trusses has become widespread, the newer and more innovative types of construction technology, such as 3D printing and robots, have so far penetrated the residential market only to a very limited extent....

A recent NAHB Special Study uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NYLS) to study lifetime homeownership rates and how long individuals sustain in homeownership. The study finds a lifetime homeownership rate of 90.5% among the 1979 NLSY cohort, meaning that most people become homeowners...

Prices paid for goods used in residential construction decreased by 0.3% in September (not seasonally adjusted) according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Building materials prices have declined an average of 0.1% per month over the last...

How do homes built-for-rent differ from more common for-sale new single-family homes? This is an important question given recent attention on the built-for-rent sector of the residential construction industry. Second quarter data for 2019 reveal that approximately 42,000 homes were built-for-rent over the last year,...

NAHB analysis of the most recent Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing published by the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that mortgages backed by the FHA made up 17.9% (32,000) of total sales (179,000), 7.3 percentage points higher than Q2 2018 (20,000). The FHA share is...

Earlier this year, NAHB released 2017 property taxes by state as a blog post and as a longer special study. However, in light of changes made to the tax code by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), further refining the statistics by congressional district...

Although produced by NAHB’s Economists, Eye on Housing is intended for a fairly broad readership with an interest in housing, but not necessarily in the academic research published by technical journals. Nevertheless, many EoH readers will want to know about a relatively recent technical paper...

Housing markets in the Midwest have experienced weakness in recent quarters. For example, single-family permits posted a 3.6% decline in year-to-date data when comparing December 2018 level with December 2017 in the Midwest. Single-family permitting for the first four months of 2019 are down 11.3%...

In July 2018, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced its intention to levy tariffs on a series of imports from China. USTR rolled out proposed tariffs in three waves, with the third list (List 3) covering approximately $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. The...

In the average new home, 28.0 percent of the finished floor space is allocated to bedrooms and 11.2 percent to the kitchen area, according to a recent NAHB study. The questions covered 13 specific types of areas or rooms, plus a catch-all “other” category for...

Property taxes vary widely across states both in terms of annual taxes paid as well as effective tax rates. In 2017, the difference between average real estate taxes paid by New Jersey and Alabama home owners was nearly $8,000. New Jersey continued its perennial distinction...

Vacancy rates are one of the key statistics NAHB Economics tracks to judge the health and direction of the housing market. The currently low homeowner and rental vacancy rates are typically interpreted as a sign of tight housing markets, with lower vacancy rates signaling a...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), signed into law in late 2017, created a new section of the tax code—199A. Section 199A provides a 20% deduction for “qualified business income” generated by pass-thru entities such as LLCs, partnerships, and S-corporations. The law went a...

As tax reform negotiations pressed forward last year, there were high hopes that the dreaded individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) would be repealed. While the corporate AMT was abolished permanently, unfortunately, the individual AMT still exists under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). However,...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) added numerous temporary provisions to the tax code. Temporary tax law can be difficult to track and compliance can be expensive. Earlier this year, the Joint Committee on Taxation released a guide to expiring tax provisions, sorted by...

Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) went into effect, a business’s net operating losses (NOLs) could generally be carried back two years and carried forward 20 years to offset taxable income. Tax reform, however, repealed the two-year carryback allowance and other special carryback...

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