Builder Confidence Begins Year on a High Note | South Salem Real Estate

Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes jumped seven points to a level of 70 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This is the highest reading since July 2005.

The increase in market confidence follows the November election results, increasing hopes among home builders and other stakeholders in the residential construction industry that the incoming administration will reduce costly regulatory burdens, particularly for small businesses. Research from NAHB published earlier this year indicated that for home builders, such regulatory costs have risen by more than 29% over the last five years.

While the significant increase in builder confidence for December could be considered an outlier, the fact remains that the economic fundamentals continue to look good for housing as we head into 2017. And the rise in the HMI is consistent with recent gains for the stock market and consumer confidence. At the same time, builders remain sensitive to rising mortgage rates and continue to deal with shortages of lots and labor.

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

All three HMI components posted healthy gains in December. The component gauging current sales conditions increased seven points to 76 while the index charting sales expectations in the next six months jumped nine points to 78. Meanwhile, the component measuring buyer traffic rose six points to 53, marking the first time this gauge has topped 50 since October 2005.