Mortgage Industry News
« Return to Mortgage Industry News
Builder Confidence Utterly Decimated by Coronavirus
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said its Housing Market Index
(HMI), which it sponsors jointly with Wells Fargo, suffered the largest monthly
change in its more than 30-year history this month, plunging 42 points from March
to a 30 reading. It was the lowest the index, which measures its member's
perceptions of the new home market, has been since June 2012 and the first time
the index has fallen into negative territory (below 50) since June 2014. To construct its index, NAHB surveys its new home builder members, asking
them for their perceptions of current single-family home sales and their
expectations for those sales over the next six months as "good," "fair" or
"poor." It also asks builders to grade current buyer traffic as "high to very
high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores for each component are then used
to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates
that more builders view conditions as good than poor.
Read Full Article