MarketWatch (February 26)
“The brightest spot in the housing market is fading fast.” Sales of new homes in the U.S. “fell to the lowest level in 3 months, as buyers have grown frustrated with high mortgage rates and high home prices.” The 10.5% drop in new-home sales has caused inventory to spike. “Builders are now sitting on high levels of inventory. The number of finished homes on the market in January was at the highest level since August 2009, in the aftermath of the Great Recession.”
Tags: August 2009, Builders, Buyers, Fading, Finished homes, Frustrated, Great Recession, Housing market, Inventory, Mortgage rates, New homes, Prices, Sales, U.S.
Washington Post (November 30)
“After years of tumult in the housing market, builders across the country are betting that looser regulations and what they hope will be an economic boom will make it easier to build and sell. They’re also hoping those tailwinds more than offset possible hazards of Trump’s agenda, including ramped-up tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China that could push up costs for materials, and aggressive immigration policies that could mean the deportations of construction workers.”
Tags: Build and sell, Builders, Canada, China, Construction, Deportations, Economic boom, Hazards, Housing market, Immigration, Materials, Mexico, Regulations, Tailwinds, Tariffs, Trump, Tumult, Workers
Chicago Tribune (September 7)
“Homeowners located in areas that are expected to flood every 100 years are required to buy flood insurance…. But they pay rates far lower than the risks warrant. That gap deprives builders of incentives to stay out of low-lying areas that are vulnerable to flooding — or to elevate structures to keep them dry when the waters rise. It also promotes the destruction of wetlands that could reduce flooding. Oh, and it helps to tilt migration toward vulnerable coastal regions like those of Texas and Florida.”
Tags: Builders, Coastal regions, Destruction, Flood, Florida, Homeowners, Insurance, Rates, Texas, Vulnerable, Wetlands
