Eye On Housing
NAHB’s Remodeling Market Index (RMI) climbed to 50 in the third quarter of 2012, up from 45 in the previous quarter. At 50, the RMI is at its highest point since the third quarter of 2005, tracking the positive trends recently seen in the rest of the housing sector. The RMI measures professional remodelers’confidence in the market based on a quarterly… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘home building’
New Home Sales Continue Improvement
September new home sales increased 5.7% to an annual rate of 389,000, the highest level since the home buyer tax credit expired in early 2010. The three-month moving average of new home sales has increased steadily for over a year as more housing markets begin to see rising home prices and improving consumer sentiment. The months’ supply of new homes… Read More ›
Existing Home Sales and Prices Decrease Slightly
Existing home sales decreased 1.7% in September from August, but were up 11.0% from the same period a year ago. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that September 2012 total existing home sales were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.75 million units combined for single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops. That compares to an upwardly revised 4.83 million… Read More ›
MBA Data Suggest Mortgage Demand for Home Purchase Is In Early Stages of Recovery
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), the seasonally adjusted total mortgage applications index, a measure of mortgage demand, declined by 4.2% in the week ending on October 12, 2012. The reported decline in the weekly total mortgage applications index reflected a 5.3% decrease in MBA’s total refinance application index. Applications for refinancing represent 81.7% of total applications. While the… Read More ›
Eye on the Economy: The Virtuous Circle of Home Building and Employment
*Eye on the Economy is an NAHB newsletter that is published every two weeks and takes a larger view of recent economic and housing policy news. Home building creates jobs. In fact, for every 100 single-family homes built, enough work is generated to create 305 full-time jobs. With about half of those jobs created in the construction sector alone, home… Read More ›
NAHB Fall Construction Forecast
Sparked by rising home prices across much of the nation, the housing recovery is now under way, but fiscal uncertainties and other challenges could result in a bumpy ride in the coming months, according to economists participating in yesterday’s National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) webinar on the construction and economic outlook. “We’re seeing a more robust housing sector than… Read More ›
Apartment Production Numbers Hit 4-Year Highs in September
In September, the (seasonally adjusted) annual rate of starts in buildings with five or more apartments was 260,000, according to the latest release from the Census Bureau’s Manufacturing and Construction Division. This is up 25 percent from August, and the highest the five-plus starts rate has been since September of 2008. To illustrate how far the market has come from the… Read More ›
Housing Construction Accelerates
Housing starts and housing permits for September showed a surprisingly strong growth. Overall starts increased 15% to an annualized rate of 872,000, the highest since July 2008. The increase was nearly universal with single-family starts increasing 11% to 603,000, the highest since August 2008, and multifamily increasing 25% to 269,000, the highest since September 2008. Three census regions also saw… Read More ›
Producer Prices in September – Stable Core, Volatile Energy, Some Building Materials Inflation
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Producer Price Indexes (PPI) for September on Friday. The PPI for finished goods increased 1.1% from August on a seasonally adjusted basis, driven mainly by a 4.7% increase in prices for finished energy goods. Prices for finished food goods rose at a 0.2% annual rate while the core index (i.e., finished goods… Read More ›
Headline Inflation Surges on Gas Prices
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers, CPI-U, rose by 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted month-to-month basis in September 2012. This follows a similar reading in August 2012. The monthly percent increase in CPI largely reflects increases in the prices for energy commodities. The gasoline price index rose by 7.0% on… Read More ›