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US Home Builder Confidence, Home Equity: June & 1Q ‘17
Builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes in the US weakened slightly in June, down two points to a level of 67 from a downwardly revised May reading of 69 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released Thursday. Elsewhere, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s 1Q 2017…
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US Housing Starts: May 2017
Total housing starts in the US declined in May after a few, strong early months to begin 2017. Total starts were down 5.5 per cent, falling to a 1.092 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, according to the joint data release from the Census Bureau and HUD Friday. Declines were recorded for both single-family and multifamily…
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US Construction Spending, House Prices: April 2017
Construction spending in the US during April 2017 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$1,218.5 billion, 1.4 per cent below the revised March estimate of US$1,235.5 billion. Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of US$943.3 billion, 0.7 per cent below the revised March estimate of US$949.7 billion.…
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US Lumber Imports, House Size, Home Sales
The US imported a total of 8.456 million cubic metres of softwood lumber from Canada in 1Q this year which, according to the figures from the US Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), equates to a reduction of 16 per cent against last year. The FAS also recorded a reduction in US softwood lumber…
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Softwood Lumber Tariff and US Housing
The conversation shifted slightly this week; or perhaps more correctly expanded, from specifics of assignation of US duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the effects of that on a tenderly burgeoning US home building industry. Rising wages and moderating home prices offset a rise in mortgage interest rates to give housing affordability a…
