July NAHB housing index holds, as demand rises

Builders’ confidence in the market for new single-family homes held steady as the National Association of Home Builders' housing market index remained at 68 in July.

IFR's poll of economists predicted the index would be 69.

homebuilders

“Consumer demand for single-family homes is holding strong this summer, buoyed by steady job growth, income gains and low unemployment in many parts of the country,” NAHB Chairman Randy Noel said.

Builders are encouraged by growing housing demand, but they continue to be burdened by rising construction material costs,” according to NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “Builders need to manage these cost increases as they strive to provide competitively priced homes, especially as more first-time home buyers enter the housing market.”

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as either "good," "fair" or "poor." The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as either "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 sales conditions as good than poor.

The current single-family home sales index held at 74, the sales expectations index for the next six months declined to 73 from 75; and the traffic of prospective buyers index grew to 52 from 50.

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