Fri, Nov 17 2023, 1:27 PM
Both of the key metrics for residential construction, housing permits, and housing starts, beat analysts’ expectations in October. The U.S. Census Bur...
Tue, Sep 19 2023, 11:15 AM
Results of the August Residential Construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development were decidedly m...
Thu, Jul 27 2023, 1:26 PM
Pending home sales pulled out of a three-month spiral in June but with only a fractional increase from May. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR...
Wed, Jul 19 2023, 3:55 PM
The rate of both construction permitting and housing starts retreated from their May levels last month. The significant increase in estimated starts ...
Tue, Jun 20 2023, 3:05 PM
Although the New Residential Construction report released by the Census Bureau has notoriously wide margins of error, it's rare to see numbers like to...
Tue, Jun 20 2023, 9:40 AM
I am fortunate to travel around some (no, I am not on the missing Titanic tourist submarine, nor personally shepherding the new Credit Trigger Bill in...
Wed, May 17 2023, 11:39 AM
The April Residential Construction Report from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows mixed results in April...
Tue, Apr 25 2023, 12:34 PM
New home sales figures bounced higher again in Marc h, outperforming February sales by 9.6 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing a...
Tue, Apr 18 2023, 12:39 PM
Residential construction data for March didn’t come close to matching February’s performance, but the rate of housing starts held its own. The good n...
Tue, Apr 4 2023, 9:56 AM
Construction spending remained unremarkable in February, declining fractionally from January (-0.1 percent) while maintaining a 5.2 percent improvemen...
Thu, Mar 16 2023, 1:48 PM
It didn’t approach the levels of the “good old days” of 2020 and 2021, but construction activity did show signs of life last month. The U.S. Census Bu...
Thu, Feb 16 2023, 2:35 PM
It seems that most of the stories I write on home sales and construction numbers begin with a slightly different iteration of the same core thought: t...
Wed, Jan 18 2023, 11:02 AM
On top of the solid report on mortgage volume earlier today, comes another hopeful report from the construction industry. The National Association of ...
Tue, Dec 20 2022, 4:14 PM
Housing Starts, the jargon word used to refer to the inception of new residential construction, have a fairly logical relationship with building permi...
Mon, Dec 19 2022, 2:31 PM
The Housing Market Index (HMI) from the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB)--typically referred to simply as "builder confidence"--is argued t...
Thu, Nov 17 2022, 3:47 PM
There aren't many ways to make the Census Bureau's New Residential Construction report exciting, and there are zero ways to frame it in a positive lig...
Wed, Nov 2 2022, 8:42 AM
A bit of easing in mortgage rates prompted a tiny uptick in refinancing during the week ended October 28, but overall mortgage application volume con...
Wed, Oct 19 2022, 1:49 PM
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a small improvement in the number of permits issued in September a...
Wed, Oct 19 2022, 8:18 AM
Mortgage application activity fell again during the week ended October 14 as mortgage interest rates hit their highest level in 20 years. The Market B...
Mon, Oct 3 2022, 4:15 PM
Spending on residential construction, while down a bit in August and in spite of the gloom and doom about the housing market, continues to run signifi...
Tue, Sep 20 2022, 10:15 AM
Residential construction numbers were mixed in August. Home builders apparently worked on drawing down their backlogs of permits rather than seeking ...
Mon, Sep 19 2022, 1:32 PM
The National Association of Home Builder’s (NAHB’s) index measuring the confidence of builders in the new home market has fallen for the ninth straigh...
Tue, Aug 16 2022, 12:10 PM
Residential construction numbers fell again in July, giving credence to Monday’s National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB’s) report detailing a ne...
Tue, Jul 19 2022, 12:58 PM
There were modest pullbacks in both the seasonally adjusted annual numbers of permits and housing starts in June. But it was only because of strong ga...
Thu, Jun 16 2022, 11:18 AM
As might have been expected considering the sixth consecutive drop in the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB’s) Housing Market Index release...
Thu, Jun 16 2022, 11:14 AM
If you can't think of a word or phrase, say, "I forgot the English word for it." That way people will think you're bilingual instead of an idiot. It i...
Wed, Jun 1 2022, 12:28 PM
Construction spending continues to run well above its pace in 2021 with the residential sector remaining responsible for much of the gain. Total spend...
Wed, May 18 2022, 3:07 PM
The regular monthly release of the New Residential Construction report from the Census Bureau is typically fairly dry. To be fair, this month's updat...
Tue, May 3 2022, 2:08 PM
Total construction spending continues to roar ahead of its 2021 pace, led again in March by another double digit increase in the residential compone...
Wed, Apr 20 2022, 9:58 AM
Despite the oft-cited hurdles, housing production continued to strengthen in March. Permits for residential construction were issued at seasonally adj...
Fri, Apr 1 2022, 2:37 PM
Total construction spending rose in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.704 trillion, a 0.5 percent increase from January and 11.2 per...
Fri, Mar 18 2022, 1:13 PM
Existing home sales slowed in February and the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said the recent rise in interest rates may have already knocke...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 12:19 PM
I received this from a loan officer in Michigan. “Forget the Serenity Prayer! Grant me coffee to change the things I can, and wine to accept those tha...
Thu, Feb 17 2022, 9:52 AM
Residential construction numbers for January were mixed . Permits were up slightly from December but starts fell back from December’s near 12-point ...
Wed, Feb 2 2022, 2:20 PM
Construction spending totaled $1.599 trillion in 2021, an increase of 8.2 percent from the $1.470 trillion spent in 2020. Residential spending, both...
Thu, Jan 27 2022, 10:33 AM
Pending home sales fell for the second month in December and are finishing up the year well below their December 2020 level. The National Associatio...
Wed, Jan 19 2022, 10:53 AM
Residential construction numbers exceeded expectations again in December. Most of the gains, however, came from the multifamily sector. The U.S. Ce...
Mon, Jan 3 2022, 11:29 AM
Construction spending increased slightly in November compared to October and increased its lead year-over-year from the 7.5 percent improvement repo...
Tue, Dec 28 2021, 11:13 AM
With the overall inflation rate becoming a focus of concern, the attention paid to lumber prices over the spring and summer faded to background noise....
Thu, Dec 16 2021, 10:59 AM
Housing starts surged in November to the highest seasonally adjusted rate since March and the second highest in the last 12 months. The U.S. Census Bu...
Wed, Dec 1 2021, 4:55 PM
National spending on construction spending rose slightly in October, but for the second month in a row, the increase wasn't driven by the residential ...
Fri, Nov 19 2021, 12:45 PM
The ink wasn’t dry on Fannie Mae’s October economic forecast when the month’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) was published showing an inflation rate two-t...
Thu, Nov 18 2021, 10:19 AM
Recently the podcast, its link at the bottom of this opening paragraph daily, quoted, “Change in residential lending is mandatory; progress is optiona...
Wed, Nov 17 2021, 10:31 AM
Residential construction numbers were mixed in October. The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development report an increase in c...
Tue, Nov 2 2021, 3:51 PM
Construction spending decreased 0.5 percent from August to September according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Total spending was at a sea...
Tue, Oct 19 2021, 10:36 AM
Both permits and housing starts fell in September following an unanticipated increase the previous month. Where the August gains were driven primarily...
Mon, Oct 4 2021, 10:37 AM
Construction spending in August, both public and privately funded, was essentially unchanged from the prior month. The Census Bureau said total constr...
Tue, Sep 21 2021, 11:36 AM
Residential construction numbers were a surprise again in August. Permits for construction and housing starts were both higher than expected, however,...
Thu, Sep 2 2021, 2:49 PM
The U.S. Census Bureau says July's expenditures on all types of construction was at a seasonally adjusted rate of $1.569 trillion compared to $1.563 t...
Fri, Aug 20 2021, 1:42 PM
Fannie Mae's economists provided a mixed forecast this month. The baseline view of the company's Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) group is for th...
