February Was an Unexpected – and Pleasant – Surprise for Housing Starts
Even as the new construction market for housing continues to struggle the results from February were better than expected. The new numbers are in from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development and they are encouraging compared to the previous month. Privately owned housing starts were 1,501,000, an 11.2 percent […]
What Are the Top Ten Housing Markets for 2025?
Some of the usual suspects turn up on Realtor.com’s list for this year, but there are a few surprises too. It’s not a surprise that the best housing markets for 2025 come exclusively from the U.S. South and the West but the individual metropolitan areas might offer a few unexpected choices. Realtor.com’s rankings for the […]
Why the “Missing Middle” Is an Opportunity for Home Builders
Between the single family and large multi-family buildings that dominate home building today lies an underdeveloped middle. The so-called “middle” sector of the U.S. homebuilding market – the medium-density structures like duplexes, triplexes and townhouses – grew just 11 percent nationwide over the past 20 years, contributing to the overall shortage in homes in the […]
Zillow to Show Climate Threat Score for Housing Listings
The move comes in the wake of a wave of hurricanes and other natural disasters that many scientists blame on climate change. Zillow, the popular real estate website where many Americans shop for their next homes, will be adding a climate risk threat score for every for-sale listing on its platform starting by the end […]
Home Depot Quarter Financials Show Business Still Tough
Even as there are encouraging signs in the housing economy bottoming out, the big DIY chain is still showing a sales slowdown. If you subscribe to the theory that Home Depot is the canary in the home improvement coal mine – granted a very big canary – then its financial results earlier this month indicate […]
Wall Street Analyst Sees More Positives than Negatives in Housing Market
It may not be back to the good times during low interest rates but Telsey Advisory Group’s Housing Scorecard shows more positives than negatives. If you’re looking for good news about the housing market – especially when there doesn’t seem to be too much as the most recent data suggests the sector remains weak and […]
Zillow Now Forecasting Stronger Housing Prices for 2024
The real estate site has raised its outlook for housing prices this year, predicting a more robust marketplace. As one of the more popular websites for the U.S. residential real estate market, Zillow has its fingers on the pulse of housing price trends, so its just released upgrade of its forecast for this year is […]
Lumber Producers Seeing Wall Street Gains Thanks to Housing Rebound
As home builders’ stock prices climb due to the rebound in the overall housing market this spring and are projected to continue into the summer, another group is benefiting too: the companies producing all that lumber to build those houses. A housing market that has seen few existing homes going up for sale due to […]
Get Ready for Zoomer Home Buyers
Just when you’ve figured out how to deal with millennial homebuyers, you need to be prepared for the next generation, the Zoomers, who are coming along fast and furiously. The generational shifts so far in American homebuyers have presented huge challenges for the housing and construction sectors but they may be nothing compared to what’s […]
Has the Housing Market Bottomed Out?
Several new reports are suggesting that the U.S. housing market may have started a slow return, even as interest rates continue to stymie new home construction. Single-family housing sales, one of the best barometers for both the larger American economy as well as the construction sector, hit a one-year high in March, surging 9.6% to […]