The National Association of Home Builders conducts a survey gathering information based on the general economy and housing market conditions and compiles it into a report called the Housing Market Index. Builders who are surveyed are also asked to rate the present sales of new homes, sales of new homes expected in the next six months, and traffic of prospective buyers in new homes. For the month of September, home builder confidence is reported at a level of 67. This number is in-line with estimates and last month’s release, but it is at a low for the year. When digging deeper in the report, we see that the traffic component is bringing down the average, but the current sales component, along with the future sales component are very strong.
A “housing start” is defined as the breaking of ground to construct a private, residential building. The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development release a report breaking down new “starts” every month. In August’s report, we see that housing starts rose 9.2%, which is amounts to about 1.28 million units. This a positive sign for the housing market as it opens up room for more inventory which is created to help placate the continued healthy and hungry levels of demand.
Sources:
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By: Jon Iacono