Eye On Housing
Every year, the US Census Bureau publishes data on the characteristics of new single-family homes started in its Survey of Construction. In 2016, 3.7 percent of new single-family homes started had 1 bathroom or less, 60.9 percent had 2 bathrooms, 26.7 percent had 3 bathrooms, and 8.7 percent had four bathrooms or more (Figure 1). The term ‘bathroom’ in this… Read More ›
Air Conditioning Systems Every year, the US Census Bureau publishes information on characteristics of new homes started in its Survey of Construction (SOC), including air conditioning and heating systems. In 2016, 93.5 percent of new single-family homes started included a central air conditioning system (Figure 1). The share of new homes with central AC rose steadily between 2000 and 2004,… Read More ›
NAHB Economics analysis of the Survey of Construction (SOC) data shows that less than 9% of new single-family homes started in 2016 are served by individual wells and close to 16% have private septic systems. These shares, however, vary widely across the nine Census divisions with the corresponding shares reaching 37% and 43% in New England – the highest occurrence… Read More ›
Of the roughly 780,000 single-family homes started in 2016, 23.7 percent came with decks, according to NAHB tabulation of data from the Survey of Construction (SOC, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and partially funded by HUD). This is up slightly from 23.3 percent of single-family homes started in 2015. From a slightly longer historic perspective, the share of new homes… Read More ›
The Census Bureau recently released 2016 multifamily completions data from the Survey of Construction. A total of 159,000 housing units, or 49 percent of all multifamily completions, were in buildings with 50 or more units, more than any other building type (Figure 1). Multifamily completions in large buildings (50 or more units) grew significantly after the Great Recession, but growth… Read More ›
Of the roughly 780,000 single-family homes started in 2016, 65.1 percent included porches, according to NAHB tabulation of data from the Survey of Construction (SOC). The SOC is conducted on an ongoing basis by the U.S. Census Bureau with partial funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Among other things, the SOC shows that, over the period when single-family starts were… Read More ›
NAHB analysis of the Survey of Construction (SOC) shows that 56.8% of all new single-family started in 2016 were built on slab foundations, 27.4% had a full/partial basement, and 14.5% selected a crawl space. The gap between slab and full/partial basement foundation adoption rates is growing: the share built on slabs steadily increased from 46.0% in 2000 to 56.8% in… Read More ›
The average length of time to complete construction of a multifamily building, after obtaining authorization, was 15 months according to the 2016 Survey of Construction (SOC) from the Census Bureau. The permit-to-completion time increased by approximately one month from 2015 to 2016, as per unit median square footage and share of multifamily for sale rose. The average time to build… Read More ›
The 2016 Survey of Construction (SOC) from the Census Bureau shows that the average completion time of a single-family house is around 7.5 months, which usually includes almost a month from authorization to start and another 6.5 months to finish the construction. The timeline from authorization to completion, however, which is not consistent across the nation, depends on the housing… Read More ›
Of the 714,500 single-family homes started in 2015, 64 percent included porches and 23 percent included decks, according to data from the Survey of Construction (which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and partially funded by HUD). NAHB tabulation of these data show that porches have become somewhat more common on new homes over the past decade. In 2005,… Read More ›