Insights
Construction Market Trends for August 2024
New construction activity for the US continued the pattern from July 2024 and decreased in August. This means a -5% change for new construction from a year-over-year point of view. Alteration activity also dipped again in August, although not as much in magnitude as new construction.…
Construction Snapshot for July 2024
National new construction activity continued the pattern from June and decreased in July 2024. From a year-over-year growth perspective, this corresponds with 0% growth for new construction. In a similar vein, alteration activity dipped slightly again in July, although year-over-year growth stayed positive at 2%. Breaking…
Construction Snapshot for June 2024
National new construction activity took a slight step backwards after five consecutive months of growth to start 2024, although grew 4% on a year-over-year basis. Similarly, alteration activity dipped slightly in June, although annual growth remained positive at 2%. From a regional standpoint, the annual growth…
New Construction Trends (Q1 ’23)
BuildZoom has an array of classifiers applied to building permits, which allows us to track trends across different segments of the construction market. The ‘new construction’ classifier has a high correlation (r=.77) with the US Census’ estimate for monthly expenditures on private residential construction. Taking a…
The Toughest Places to Build: Behind the Scenes of a Wall Street Journal Analysis
The Wall Street Journal recently asked me to identify and rank the nation’s toughest places to build housing. This blog post provides readers with the full set of rankings, as well as commentary and a rundown of the data and methods used. Download Rankings Metropolitan areas Zip code…
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Urban Geography, Vacant Lots, and The Stunted Recovery of New Home Construction
Summary: Even as home prices reach new highs and markets are starved for inventory, the rise in the number of new homes built in the U.S. is sluggish. Homebuilders blame a shortage of labor and, crucially, a limited supply of lots. The geography within metros is…
Continue Reading Urban Geography, Vacant Lots, and The Stunted Recovery of New Home Construction