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Browsing Tag: New Construction

US Home Builder Confidence Rises Slightly for September

Image Source: Calculated Risk Blog

A key measure of how home builders are feeling about their market was released today. The National Association of Home Builders / Wells Fargo Housing Market Index saw a rise of one point month over month to 76. This is down from the peak of 90 during the craziness of Covid. It’s come down in part due to the challenges many builders had faced with materials and labor costs going up. While lumber and building materials have come down in price, labor remains a challenge for the industry. Here’s another good look at the latest data from the Calculated Risk Blog.

12 Predictions for Home Building

Builder Magazine recently published an excellent article by industry expert, George Casey titled, “12 Predictions for Home Building.” The home building industry has recovered since the housing market crash of 2008 but we are still no where near the levels we should be at or near anything like where we were prior to the crash. There are many reasons why the industry has not fully recovered but we have to come up with innovative ways now to get back to building more housing.

There are lots of takeaways from Mr. Casey’s piece, but a couple of things particularly standout in my mind:

  1. More of the home building process will move to the factory where we’ll have more pre-built homes that will be assembled on site. This will help drive down costs as well as deal with the labor shortage
  2. Builders, developers and REALTORS need to work closely with government officials to help come up with more innovative housing options. What you see right now is often the result of current regulations. A big area of opportunity will be in redeveloping or converting large homes in to multi-unit rentals.
  3. Trends in terms of government incentives is no longer driving people toward homeownership…new rental models need to be considered. We’ll likely see new kinds of companies, players, investors, JVs come in to play to make this work…might even see triple net leases with longer terms for rental housing. Interesting.

Anyway, there’s a lot in the article by Mr. Casey. I would highly recommend you take the time to read it.