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Custom Home Building is on a Roll
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Robert Dietz, chief economist for the National
Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has provided a couple of updates on housing
construction trends taken from the Census Bureau's Quarterly Starts and Completions by
Purpose and Design in the association's Eye on Housing blog.
Dietz takes a granular look at the trend toward larger homes and custom home
building.
Dietz
says the data shows that custom home building outperformed, in relative terms, spec
building in the second quarter, contrary to the
"conventional narrative that spec home building saw outsized gains during the
April to June time period." Custom home building (defined as built for a
specific owner) did decline during the quarter, impacted by the temporary
shutdown of work sites in many locations and shaken confidence in the entire
economy as the coronavirus hit. However, it was down by 6 percent from a year
earlier to 48,000 units while the overall decline in housing starts was 11
percent. Over the last four quarters, custom housing starts totaled 177,000, a 5
percent increase over the four quarters ending in Q2 2019 of 168,000 starts.
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