Articles

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

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

U.S. ceramic tile imports in January 2022 were down by 13.1% in square meters but down by only 3.7% in dollars, reports Grosser Consulting. Read More

Consumer sentiment declined 4.9% to 59.7 in early March, according to preliminary results from the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers.  Read More

Mortgage applications increased 8.5% from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending March 4, 2022.  Read More

The number of job openings was little changed at 11.3 million on the last business day of January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.  Hires and total separations were little changed at 6.5 million and 6.1 million, respectively. Within separations, the quits rate decreased to 2.8%.  Read More

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.8% in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 7.9% before seasonal adjustment. Read More

New findings from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) show that the rate of year-over-year single-family growth in all small and large metro urban, suburban and rural regional submarkets peaked in the second quarter of 2021. While that expansion has cooled somewhat, growth rates in all markets remained in double-digits in the final quarter of 2021. In contrast, multifamily growth in all of these markets has been surging since the second quarter as some housing demand returned back to higher density markets.  Read More

Construction spending during January 2022 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,677.2 billion, 1.3% above the revised December estimate of $1,655.8 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.  Read More