Homebuilder Confidence Remains High

On the heels of numerous positive predictions for residential homebuilding's 2017 outlook, a new midyear metric was released that shows homebuilding confidence remains high. Prior to January, forecasts for building materials and homebuilding were very optimistic and positive. Growth rates as high as 10% were forecast for 2017 residential homebuilding.

For now, it seems as if the positive outlook is manifesting itself in reality. Homebuilders are confident that the residential market will remain lucrative. The Housing Market Index continued to rise this month, reaching a measure of 70 (anything over 50 is positive, so 70 is a very optimistic level).

So far this year, the apparent barriers to new homebuilding are a lack of trained labor and the potential for interest rate increases. The need for trained construction workers has been well-documented, and many builders feel that struggling to hire workers is hampering their ability to build. Further, projected interest rate increases and rising home loan rates will add a bit of cost to home ownership. Though, these two factors haven't seemed to slow homebuilding much. In all, residential homebuilding looks great this year.