Chappaqua

Builder confidence falls to two year low | Chappaqua Real Estate

Rising inflation and higher mortgage rates are slowing traffic of prospective home buyers and putting a damper on builder sentiment. In a troubling sign for the housing market, builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes posted its sixth straight monthly decline in June, falling two points to 67, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. This marks the lowest HMI reading since June 2020.

“Six consecutive monthly declines for the HMI is a clear sign of a slowing housing market in a high inflation, slow growth economic environment,” said NAHB Chairman Jerry Konter, a builder and developer from Savannah, Ga. “The entry-level market has been particularly affected by declines for housing affordability and builders are adopting a more cautious stance as demand softens with higher mortgage rates. Government officials need to enact policies that will support the supply-side of the housing market as costs continue to climb.”

“The housing market faces both demand-side and supply-side challenges,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Residential construction material costs are up 19% year-over-year with cost increases for a variety of building inputs, except for lumber, which has experienced recent declines due to a housing slowdown. On the demand-side of the market, the increase for mortgage rates for the first half of 2022 has priced out a significant number of prospective home buyers, as reflected by the decline for the traffic measure of the HMI.”

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 35 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

All three HMI indices posted declines in June. The component charting traffic of prospective buyers fell five points to 48, marking the first time this gauge has fallen below the breakeven level of 50 since June 2020. The HMI index gauging current sales conditions fell one point to 77 and the gauge measuring sales expectations in the next six months fell two points to 61.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast fell one point to 71, the Midwest dropped six points to 56, the South fell two points to 78 and the West posted a nine-point decline to 74.

HMI tables can be found at nahb.org/hmi. More information on housing statistics is also available at Housing Economics PLUS (formerly housingeconomics.com).

read more…

nahb.org/news/

This post was last modified on June 15, 2022 9:30 am

Robert Paul

Robert is a realtor in Bedford NY. He has been successfully working with buyers and sellers for years. His local area of expertise includes Bedford, Pound Ridge, Armonk, Lewisboro, Chappaqua and Katonah. When you have a local real estate question please call 914-325-5758.

Recent Posts

Out of Sevice with brain injury since November.

Just back out of hospital in early March for home recovery. Therapist coming today.

1 year ago

Existing home sales down 28% | Katonah Real Estate

Sales fell 5.9% from September and 28.4% from one year ago.

1 year ago

Single-Family Housing Contraction Continues | Bedford Hills Real Estate

Housing starts decreased 4.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.43 million units in…

1 year ago

Closed Median Sale Price in Hudson Valley/NYC Markets Declined by 2.50% in October | Bedford Real Estate

OneKey MLS reported a regional closed median sale price of $585,000, representing a 2.50% decrease…

1 year ago

Building Materials Prices Decline for Second Consecutive Month | Pound Ridge Real Estate

The prices of building materials decreased 0.2% in October

1 year ago

Mortgage rates drop with inflation drop | Bedford Corners Real Estate

Mortgage rates went from 7.37% yesterday to 6.67% as of this writing.

1 year ago

This website uses cookies.