Eye On Housing
The fourth quarter NAHB Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) highlight recent performance of single-family and multifamily construction markets across the seven population density-based regional geographies of the index. Over the course of 2019, exurbs outside medium-sized cities, i.e., outlying counties of small metro areas, performed best at 2.9% growth rate. Small towns (micro counties) performed next best at 2.8%, although… Read More ›
For the current edition of the Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), NAHB introduces a red vs. blue segmentation of the 3,221 counties of the United States. “Red counties” are defined as those in which the majority of the population in the 2016 Presidential election voted for President Donald Trump, while “blue counties” are defined as those in which most of… Read More ›
Supply and resulting affordability challenges for millennials were highlighted in the most recent NAHB Home Building Geography Index (HBGI). The third quarter HBGI also offers more region-specific insights of single- and multifamily home building trends, including their connections to millennial-intensive areas. Single-family home building in rural areas posted a solid growth rate of 1.1% for the third quarter of 2019,… Read More ›
The third cut of NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) defines “Millennial counties” as those having at least a 26% share of total population belonging to the Millennial generation (born between 1981-1997). The top 25% of counties with a high millennial concentration represent 62% of the U.S. population. These counties also constitute 59% and 80% of single-family and multifamily construction,… Read More ›
When NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) was introduced, it allocated county single- and multifamily permits into seven regions based on population densities. These regions are representative of different types of housing markets in the United States. New work in this post offers a per capita analysis of the HBGI regionals, which corroborates earlier findings of market share and growth… Read More ›
As tracked by the NAHB HBGI, the changing geographic shares of single-family construction across the U.S. reflect the evolution of home building. As can be seen from the above figure, the market share of single-family permits for small city core areas declined slightly over the last eight years, starting initially from a little less than 30% of single-family home construction… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of multifamily construction permits over the last four quarters indicates relatively higher growth rates in less populated areas. A prior post reviewed the newly released Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) through the perspective of single-family permit activity. This post examines multifamily construction as classified into the seven HBGI regional geographies, as differentiated by urban density. Economic theory suggests… Read More ›
Following the Great Recession, the National Association of Home Builders created the Leading Market Index (LMI) to track the recovery of the housing market based on three factors: employment, house price indices, and housing construction. As the recovery transitioned into a period in which supply-side elements (land, labor, lumber, lending and laws) were limiting factors and housing affordability declined, the… Read More ›