20 Business View - March 2015
National Association of
Home Builders
Builder confidence drops two points in March
Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-
family homes in March fell two points to a level of 53
on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells
Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).
“Even with this slight slip, the HMI remains in positive
territory and we expect the market to improve as we
enter the spring buying season,” said NAHB Chairman
Tom Woods, a home builder from Blue Springs, Mo.
“The drop in builder confidence is largely attributable
to supply chain issues, such as lot and labor shortages
as well as tight underwriting standards,” said NAHB
Chief Economist David Crowe. “These obstacles not-
withstanding, we are expecting solid gains in the hous-
ing market this year, buoyed by sustained job growth,
low mortgage interest rates and pent-up demand.”
Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been
conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Hous-
ing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of cur-
rent single-family home sales and sales expectations
for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The
survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective
CONSTRUCTION
