Eye On Housing
Solid home price appreciation more than offset a modest reduction in mortgage interest rates to push housing affordability lower in the second quarter of 2016, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI). In all, 62 percent of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of April and end of June were affordable to… Read More ›
The total number of residential construction firms in the country (single-family builders, multifamily builders, and residential remodelers) dropped to around 689,000 in 2012, 12% lower than in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners (collected only in years ending in ‘2’ and ‘7’). While the industry as a whole contracted during those five years, the share… Read More ›
New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development provide strong evidence that the costs of producing new housing are making it difficult to impossible to build homes for a significant part of the U.S. housing market. At the beginning of June, the Census Bureau traditionally releases data about the Characteristics of New… Read More ›
Approximately 7.7% of single-family home starts in 2015 were attributable to tear-down related construction, according to the latest estimates from NAHB. Tear-down starts refer to construction of a home on a site where a previous structure was torn down before the new home could begin development. NAHB estimates 55,000 total tear-downs for 2015. Anecdotal evidence suggests that tear-down construction has become a… Read More ›
According to data from the Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC), 58 percent of all homes started in 2014 were built within a community or home owner’s association. The Census Bureau defines a community or homeowner’s associations as “formal legal entities created to maintain common areas of a development and to enforce private deed restrictions; these organizations are usually created… Read More ›
Industry benchmarks on profit margins, asset levels, and equity positions are important because they allow businesses to compare their performance to their peers, and that can be extremely helpful in identifying areas for improvement and increasing efficiencies. This is the reason why NAHB periodically conducts a survey asking single-family builders nationwide to (confidentially) provide us their income statements and balance… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of the latest Economic Census data shows that, on average, residential construction establishments were able to cover their hard and soft construction costs and generate positive profits in 2012. The 2012 data show that the direct costs of construction – consisting of construction payroll, costs of construction work subcontracted out to others, and costs for materials/supplies – vary… Read More ›
A scarcity of workers has been a notable headwind for home building and other parts of the construction industry in recent years. And a look at Census data reveals that the median age of workers in the construction industry exceeds the median age of the overall labor force. As home building has recovered, there has been a significant labor market… Read More ›
The construction industry is expected to experience a significant amount of employment growth over the next decade, according to new projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS employment projections are designed to estimate labor market changes given assumptions and estimates involving structural economic factors. The estimates assume full employment and do not attempt to estimate cyclical or business cycle effects. The current edition… Read More ›
Based on the recently released 2012 Economic Census data, new NAHB research shows that residential construction remains the industry of independent entrepreneurs with 81 percent of homebuilders and specialty trade contractors being self-employed independent contractors. Even among establishments with paid employees, the industry is dominated by small businesses, with two-thirds of homebuilders and three out of four specialty trade contractors… Read More ›