Eye On Housing
NAHB’s analysis of Census Data from the Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design survey indicates custom home building gained market share during 2022. There were 44,000 total custom building starts during the fourth quarter of the year. This marks a 10% decline compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 as the overall home building market softened. Nonetheless, over the course… Read More ›
According to NAHB analysis of the most recent Census data of Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design, during the fourth quarter of 2022, single-family attached starts totaled 37,000, which is 8% lower than the fourth quarter of 2021. Over the course of 2022, townhouse construction starts totaled 148,000 units, which is effectively unchanged from 2021. Using a one-year moving average,… Read More ›
Single-family built-for-rent construction ended 2022 strong with a rising total market share. According to NAHB’s analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Starts and Completions by Purpose and Design, there were approximately 17,000 single-family built-for-rent (SFBFR) starts during the fourth quarter of 2022. This is 6% higher compared to the fourth quarter 2021 total. Over 2022 as a whole, 69,000… Read More ›
During the fourth quarter of 2022, credit continued to become less available and generally more costly on loans for Acquisition, Development & Construction (AD&C) according to NAHB’s Survey on AD&C Financing. To analyze credit availability, responses from the NAHB survey are used to construct a net easing index, similar to the net easing index based on the Federal Reserve’s survey… Read More ›
Due to elevated mortgage rates and high construction costs, overall housing starts decreased 4.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.31 million units in January, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. Although rising builder sentiment indicates a turning point for housing later this year, the volatility in the… Read More ›
Two consecutive solid monthly gains for builder confidence, spurred in part by easing mortgage rates, signal that the housing market may be turning a corner even as builders continue to contend with high construction costs and building material supply chain logjams. Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes in February rose seven points to 42, according to… Read More ›
The price and availability of building materials again topped the list of problems builders faced last year, while interest rates (along with general inflation and negative media reports) moved considerably up the list. According to special questions on the January 2023 survey for the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, building material prices were a significant issue for 96% of builders… Read More ›
Further downshifting its pace of tightening of monetary policy, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee raised the federal funds target rate by 25 basis points, increasing that target to an upper bound of 4.75%. This marked a smaller increase after four previous 75 basis point hikes and a decelerated 50 basis point increase last December. While not the end of… Read More ›
The count of open, unfilled jobs for the overall economy increased in December, rising to 11 million, the highest level since July. This was a surprise rise, as noted by many analysts, particularly given a growing chorus of corporate hiring freezes and job cuts. For now, the December data appears to be more noise than signal, although certainly that conclusion… Read More ›
NAHB’s analysis of headship rates from the latest 2021 American Community Survey (ACS) reveals that the Covid-19 pandemic unlocked some pent-up housing demand, especially among young adults ages 25 to 34. The pandemic-heightened desire for more spacious and independent living, as well as “excess” savings accumulated early in the lockdown stages of the pandemic, propelled headship rates of young adults… Read More ›