Single-family production remained at an anemic pace in February as builders continue to wrestle with elevated mortgage rates, high construction costs and tightening credit conditions that threaten to be exacerbated by recent turmoil in the banking system. Led by gains in apartment construction, overall housing starts in February increased 9.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.45 million units,…
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New Home Sales Up in January
Declining mortgage rates and home prices in January, coupled with home builders use of sales incentives, helped boost new home sales last month. Sales of newly built, single-family homes in January increased 7.2% to a 670,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate from an upwardly revised reading in December, according to newly released data by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban…
Read MoreSingle-Family Housing Starts Continue to Fall
Single-family housing starts continued to fall in November, with the pace of construction down 32% since February when mortgage rates began to rise. The housing market continues to weaken because stubbornly high construction costs, elevated interest rates and flagging demand are harming housing affordability. And with the count of multifamily units under construction reaching a near 50-year high, multifamily permit…
Read MoreNew Home Sales Up but Rising Rates Portend Weakening Market
A brief decline in mortgage rates helped to boost new home sales in August but sales are expected to move on a downward trend in the months ahead as rates have since moved higher and builder sentiment continues to fall due to declining housing affordability and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks. Sales of newly built, single-family homes in August increased 28.8%…
Read MoreHousing Starts Weaken in July
A sharp decline in single-family home construction is another indicator that the housing slowdown is showing no signs of abating, as rising construction costs, elevated mortgage rates and supply chain disruptions continue to act as a drag on the market. Overall housing starts fell 9.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.45 million units in July, according to a…
Read MoreNew Home Sales Fall to Lowest Pace in More than Six Years
In a further sign that the housing market continues to weaken, new home sales in July fell to their lowest level since January 2016. The tepid sales pace matches declining builder confidence since the beginning of the year as the industry grapples with supply chain disruptions that are delaying new home building projects and raising housing costs as mortgage interest…
Read MoreHousing Permits Decline in March
The single-family housing market continued to show signs of softening in March as permits and starts declined due to rising mortgage interest rates and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks that continue to delay construction projects and raise home building costs. Due to strong multifamily production, overall housing starts increased 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.79 million units, according…
Read MoreThe Housing Affordability Challenge
Last month, I wrote about a recent report issued by the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index, also known as the “HOI,” which showed that just 54.2% of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of October and end of December were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $79,900. This is down from…
Read MoreIs The New Home Market Cooling?
I wrote recently about how the housing market continues to show strength, driven in part by buoyant builder sentiment, low inventories and high demand across all price points. That was back in the fall, and while all signs point to strong new home demand through this spring and summer, a new confluence of pressures could force a tamping down of…
Read MoreAll Fingers Keep Pointing to a Strong Housing Market
A measure we watch with great interest that speaks volumes about the outlook for the new home construction market is the Builder Sentiment Index tracked and published by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Wells Fargo, which is known as the Housing Market Index (HMI).
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