Articles

Higher mortgage rates and construction costs pushed new home sales lower in February even as demand remains solid due to a lack of existing home inventory. Read More

The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for February was 51.3, up from a score of 51.0 in January. Any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings. Read More

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was prepared to raise interest rates in half-percentage-point steps and high enough to deliberately slow the economy if it concluded such steps were warranted to bring down inflation, reports the Wall Street Journal. Read More

Total construction starts rose 9% in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.013 trillion, according to Dodge Construction Network. Nonresidential building starts swelled 32% due to the start of three large manufacturing facilities. By contrast, residential starts fell 3%, and nonbuilding starts fell by less than 1%. Without the three large manufacturing projects, total construction would have declined 6% in February. Read More

Despite production bottlenecks and rising construction costs, total housing starts led by a strong multifamily reading posted a solid gain in February as demand stays strong and existing inventory remains at low levels. Read More

Ceramic was propelled by the residential market last year, but it still faces challenges. Read More

Privately‐owned housing starts in February were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,769,000, 6.8% above the revised January estimate of 1,657,000 and 22.3% above the February 2021 rate of 1,447,000, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly announced. Read More

he 2022 Houzz Study shows a positive outlook is prevalent across industry groups from architects and designers to builders and landscapers, despite headwinds in the form of labor and product availability and price volatility, said Marine Sargsyan, Houzz senior economist. Read More

Despite numerous market forces, the builder market has shown little signs of slowing down. Single-family and multi-family units are being built as fast as the market will allow — but continued supply chain issues, labor market shortages and regulatory issues are starting to catch up to the industry, and insiders said these factors, coupled with record high demand and low supply, are pricing even more consumers out of the market. Read More

Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes moved two points lower to 79 in March from a downwardly revised reading in February, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). Read More