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Steady job growth, affordable home prices, attractive mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand will help the housing market continue on a gradual upward trajectory in the year ahead, according to economists who participated in the recent NAHB Spring Construction Forecast Webinar.
However, supply-side headwinds led by a shortage of construction lots and labor, along with tight access to acquisition, construction and development (AD&C) loans, continue to hamper a more robust recovery.
“Builders remain cautiously optimistic about market conditions,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “2016 should be the first year since the Great Recession in which the growth rate for single-family production exceeds that of multifamily. And we see single-family growth accelerating in 2017 as the supply chain mends and we can expand production.”
The states with the strongest housing market recoveries are also among the leaders in payroll employment gains since the end of the recession. The strongest housing recoveries to date are in Montana, North Dakota and Utah, all with robust energy sectors that helped push them near or beyond full recovery in housing production. The next tier of leaders includes Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alaska – again, all with prominent energy ... Read the entire article at the NAHB website
