With home sales picking up and contractors seeing more positive business conditions in the future, remodeling activity in the U.S. is in a position to see accelerated growth by the end of this year and into 2013, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released today by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
Nationwide housing production rose by 6.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 760,000 units in June, according to newly released figures from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau. This is the fastest pace of new-home construction since October of 2008.
Existing-home prices continued to show gains but sales fell in June with tight supplies of affordable homes limiting first-time buyers, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Despite popular belief, a recent analysis of government data by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reveals that the geographic distribution of households headed by someone age 55 or older is fairly even across most of the country, with more than 30 percent of all households in every state meeting this description.
Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes rose six points to 35 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) for July, released today.
To highlight homeownership's vital importance to families and to the economy, more than 600 Floridians participated in a Rally for Homeownership today in downtown Tampa.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) told Congress today that proposed mortgage lending reforms under the Dodd-Frank Act must be imposed in a manner that causes minimum disruption to the mortgage markets while ensuring consumer protections.