Builders' confidence in the market for new single-family homes was unchanged as the National Association of Home Builders' housing market index remained at 58 in May.
The April reading was unrevised.
Thomson Reuters' poll of economists predicted the index would be 59.
"Builder confidence has held steady at 58 for four straight months, which indicates that the single-family housing sector remains in positive territory," NAHB Chairman Ed Brady said. "However, builders are facing an increasing number of regulations and lot supply constraints."
"The fact that future sales expectations rose slightly this month shows that builders are confident that the market will continue to strengthen," according to NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. "Job creation, low mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand will also spur growth in the single-family housing sector moving forward."
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 remained at 63, the sales expectations index for the next six months climbed to 65 from 62; and the traffic of prospective buyers index stayed at 44.
