Home Builder Confidence Rises to 8 Month High in November

In the U.S., home builder confidence rose two points to a level of 70 in November 2017 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). This was the highest report since March, and the second highest on record since July 2005.

"November's builder confidence reading is close to a post-recession high -- a strong indicator that the housing market continues to grow steadily," said NAHB Chairman Granger MacDonald, a home builder and developer from Kerrville, Texas. "However, our members still face supply-side constraints, such as lot and labor shortages and ongoing building material price increases."

"Demand for housing is increasing at a consistent pace, driven by job and economic growth, rising homeownership rates and limited housing inventory," said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. "With these economic fundamentals in place, we should see continued upward movement of the single-family housing market as we close out 2017."

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as "good," "fair" or "poor." The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers 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.

Two out of the three HMI components registered gains in November. The component gauging current sales conditions rose two points to 77 and the index measuring buyer traffic increased two points to 50. Meanwhile, the index charting sales expectations in the next six months dropped a single point to 77.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast jumped five points to 54 and the South rose one point to 69. Both the West and Midwest remained unchanged at 77 and 63, respectively.