NAHB Housing Market Index: "Builder Confidence Up on Strong Demand Even as Supply Side Challenges Persist"

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook. The latest reading of 83 is up 3 from last month's 80.

Here's an excerpt from this morning's blog update:

Low existing inventories and strong buyer demand helped push builder confidence higher for the third consecutive month even as supply-side challenges — including building material bottlenecks and lot and labor shortages — remain stubbornly persistent.

Here is the historical series, which dates from 1985.

The HMI correlates fairly closely with broad measures of consumer confidence. Here is a pair of overlays with the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (through the previous month) and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index (through the current month).