NAHB Housing Market Index: "Builder Confidence Remains Solid In February"
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 74 is down 1 from last month.
Here is the opening of this morning's monthly update:
Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes edged one point lower to 74 in February, according to the latest NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. The last three monthly readings mark the highest sentiment levels since December 2017.
“Steady job growth, rising wages and low interest rates are fueling demand but builders are still grappling with increasing construction and development costs,” said NAHB Chairman Dean Mon. [link]
Here is the historical series, which dates from 1985.
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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 (also through the previous month).
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