Economics

NAHB’s Economics team provides in-depth economic analysis of the most significant issues and latest trends driving the housing industry. In addition to national housing market data, this section includes state and local data for the Western region.

Housing Market Snapshot

* Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate; Arrows indicate the direction from the previous month for starts and sales and year for prices.

NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index: The index, which measures builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes, was 51 in April, unchanged from March. This breaks a four-month period of gains for the index, which nonetheless remains above the key breakeven point of 50. Any number above 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.

NAHB Chief Economist Dr. Robert Dietz’s analysis

• Interest rates moved higher in recent weeks – topping 7% in late April for the first time since last November — because of disappointing progress for inflation data and solid labor market reports.
• Although consumer demand has been somewhat dampened due to higher interest rates, builders continue to supply new homes to the market to lift inventory to make up for the low resale supply. And with shelter inflation being the largest, lingering obstacle to lower inflation, increasing the housing supply is the only solution to bend the rising housing cost curve.
• This will improve the cost of financing for land developers and home builders and enable more attainable housing supply

Labor and Workforce Data

• Employment by State and Metro Areas: Access the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about overall employment and construction employees in your state and local metro areas.
• Western Region Workforce Data: Find the construction trades wage data for the 13 states comprising the Western region of the United States.

Young Adults Living with Parents

• Young adults ages 25-34 continued the post-pandemic trend of moving out of parental homes with the share of those living with parents or parents-in-law dropping to 19.1% in 2022.
• While the national average share declined to 19.2%, more than a quarter of young adults ages 25-34 remain in parental homes in Hawaii (28.1%), California (26.2%) and New Jersey (25.9%).
• The elevated shares of young adults living with parents in high-cost coastal areas point to prohibitively expensive housing costs as one of the reasons for keeping young adults in parental homes.

Read more in this Eye on Housing blog post.