Building Market Intelligence

The home building industry got a huge boost last week, as the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 was passed. Here are the implications: Build Spec Homes: The $8,000 per home extension for entry-level buyers will continue to …

Each month, we receive survey responses from 250+ home builder executives across the country, who manage 1,700+ communities in about 90 MSAs, and use their feedback as one tool to analyze housing market conditions. Our format asks specific questions, but …

We were lucky enough to present at an all day Commercial Real Estate Symposium at the Fed, where the preeminent industry experts from each real estate sector shared what is occurring in their industry. Prior to the meeting, we had …

While both the media and stock investors believe that housing has bottomed, they are unaware of the massive supply of homes that are already in the foreclosure process that will certainly drive home prices down even further when they are …

Get ready for the short sales. According to a Treasury spokeswoman, Treasury officials will soon announce a $2,500 subsidy ($1,000 to the servicer and $1,500 to the seller) to encourage short sales as a way to clear the excess inventory. …

Construction in some really big markets has died, but we found a number of surprises when we decided to rank the Top 20 markets compared to the national peak in 2005. Our takeaways: A Sliver of its Former Self We …

Investor buyers are back and help explain some of the resurgence in sales we have seen in many markets. Investor sales now constitute nearly 26% of total sales in the 53 markets where we track this statistic, which is higher …

The FHA is a big reason that home prices haven’t fallen even further. The FHA’s aggressive lending programs have continued throughout the housing downturn, causing its market share of the mortgage industry to grow from 2% in 2005 to 23% …

Several months ago, we told our clients we thought we were entering a “W” shaped recovery, with the “first leg up” in the W driven by four things: Tremendous affordability for those who are currently paying rent, The $8,000 federal …