Builder Confidence Up Third Straight Month

Washington, DC, July 16, 2013 -- Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes rose six points to 57 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) for July.

This is the index’s third consecutive monthly gain and its strongest reading since January of 2006.

“Today’s report is particularly encouraging in that it shows improvement in builder confidence across every region as well as solid gains in current sales conditions, traffic of prospective buyers and sales expectations for the next six months,” noted NAHB Chairman Rick Judson, a home builder from Charlotte, N.C.

However, he cautioned that “This positive momentum could be disrupted by threats on the policy side, particularly with regard to the mortgage interest deduction and federal support for the housing finance system.”

“Builders are seeing more motivated buyers coming through their doors as the inventory of existing homes for sale continues to tighten,” noted NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.

“Meanwhile, as the infrastructure that supplies home building returns, some previously skyrocketing building material costs have begun to soften.”
 
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.”

All three HMI components posted gains in July. The component gauging current sales conditions rose five points to 60 – its highest level since early 2006. Meanwhile, the component gauging sales expectations in the next six months gained seven points to 67 and the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers rose five points to 45 – marking the strongest readings for each since late 2005.