Articles

"Even as builders report a firm demand for single-family homes, they continue to struggle with rising construction costs stemming from excessive regulations, a chronic shortage of workers and a lack of buildable lots," said NAHB chairman Greg Ugalde, a home builder and developer from Torrington, Conn.   Read More

Flooring Market to Reach Around $450 Billion by 2026 August 14, 2019 from Floor Covering Weekly Albany, N.Y. — The global flooring market is predicted… Read More

Suppliers increase domestic manufacturing Wednesday, August 7, 2019 By Sharyn Bernard from Floor Covering Weekly Flooring suppliers are increasingly bullish about U.S. manufacturing and have been substantially… Read More

“The U.S. economy is likely to wake up to some uncomfortable facts,” pointing to the ongoing threat of tariffs — which they call taxes and said they will absolutely slow growth. They also reported that the low interest rates have another effect — “exotic corporate debt instruments. One thing we learned from the last financial crisis is that ‘exotic instruments’ and financial markets are not ideas that coexist together peacefully.” Read More

55+ housing market solid in Q2 Read More

Tuesday, July 30, 2019 By Ryane DeFalco from Floor Covering Weekly Ceramic and porcelain floor and wall tile saw solid growth in 2018. In… Read More

Sales of newly built, single-family homes increased 7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 646,000 units in June from a downwardly revised reading in May, according to newly released data by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. On a year-to-date basis, new home sales for 2019 are 2.2 percent higher than the same period in 2018. Read More

Housing activity is the best barometer for how the flooring industry performed in both residential replacement and builder business. And in 2018, housing activity disappointed. As a consequence, the flooring sales in those two sectors also under-performed, unlike years previous.   Read More

U.S. floor coverings manufacturer sales for 2018 ended up higher than the estimates Catalina issued earlier in the year. Dollar sales (shipments minus exports plus imports) are estimated to have increased by 5.7 percent in 2018 to $27.2 billion, while square foot sales could have increased by 5.1 percent to 23.8 billion. Manufacturer sales strengthened in the second half primarily due to a 20 percent increase in total floor coverings import shipments. Read More

"The demand for remodeling continues to hold strong throughout the country," said NAHB Remodelers chair Tim Ellis, CAPS, CGP, CGR, GMR, Master CGP, a remodeler from Bel Air, Md. "However, the lack of skilled labor continues to be one of the largest roadblocks in the industry." Read More