Wednesday, January 21, 2009

NAHB Housing Market Index Falls to New Record Low


The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI)is a gauge of how builders view the market for newly built single-family homes. Today's numbers paint a very depressing picture. Regionally, the HMI fell one point to 10 in the Northeast, held even at 6 in the Midwest, rose one point to 11 in the South and fell three points to new record low of 4 in the West in January. Above 50 is a positive reading.
Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 20 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current 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 buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view sales conditions as good than poor.
It looks like this index is as low as it can get? Or is it?
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