Eye On Housing
In addition to its analysis on areas with the longest commuting times, the Q1 2021 Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) features two other Commute-to-Work data series: counties with top shares of bicycle commuters (i.e., greater than or equal to 0.5 percent) and counties with top shares1 of work-from-home workers (greater than or equal to 6.6 percent). Single-family and multifamily housing… Read More ›
The first quarter 2021 Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) showed that single-family home building continued to shift to low-density and low-cost markets, a trend stemming largely from the COVID-19 pandemic and first reported in the second quarter of 2020. However, this suburban shift has been even more pronounced in the multifamily sector, which is experiencing growth in 2021 after a… Read More ›
Home building across the nation expanded the fastest in places with the shortest commute times, according to the quarterly National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Home Building Geography Index (HBGI). The HBGI also shows the suburban shift in new home construction to low density, low cost markets stemming largely from the COVID-19 pandemic and first reported in the second quarter… Read More ›
The topic of diversity, and its relationship to homeownership and home building, carries significant implications for policy making, social justice, and equity. In addition to the usual regional classification, NAHB’s Q4 2020 Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) provides a segmentation of the housing market based on county-level measurements of racial and ethnic heterogeneity. For this purpose, we use ESRI’s1 2018… Read More ›
As part of the latest iteration of NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), it was previously shown that single-family homebuilding in the fourth quarter of 2020 continued a trend of a suburban shift to lower density markets. However, for multifamily residential construction, what started as double-digit growth in all the HBGI’s Regional submarkets in the first quarter of 2020 devolved… Read More ›
The suburban shift in home building to meet growing buyer preferences for lower density, lower cost markets stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic that was first reported in the second quarter National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) has continued throughout the rest of 2020. Single-family construction continued to overperform in suburbs, exurbs and rural communities, according… Read More ›
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Annual Resident Population of the United States as of July 1, 2020 was estimated at 329.5 million, increasing by 1.2 million from the previous year. In 2020, the Census estimated a growth rate of 0.35% on a national level, making the fifth consecutive year of a decline for the population growth rate. In… Read More ›
For the third quarter of 2020, NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) found construction gains for traditional second home markets. High-concentration second home counties were defined based on the proportion of the local housing stock that are non-rental properties and not classified as their taxpayer principal residences. Counties with relatively high concentrations1 of such residences were designated as “second home… Read More ›
Multifamily construction shifted into less dense markets during the third quarter of 2020, per the latest NAHB Homebuilding Geography Index (HBGI). This change is similar to the evolving geography for single-family home building, as housing demand moved to lower cost, more affordable markets. The multifamily data confirm that these shifts in demand are not just occurring for single-family home building… Read More ›
A trend of higher demand for housing in lower-density areas reported in the second quarter National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) has persisted into the fall, as single-family and multifamily construction continued to overperform in lower cost markets like suburbs and exurbs. The third quarter HBGI reveals that a suburban shift for consumer home buying… Read More ›