Economic Outlook

June 8, 2018

Pending Home Sales fell a wider-than-expected 1.3% in April compared to March, and were 2.1% lower compared to April of 2017, according to the National Association of Realtors, as homebuyers continue their struggle to find affordable homes.

List-To-Sale Time Is 9 Days Shorter Today Than It Was A Year Ago

Trade-up homes are zipping off the market fastest with a median list-to-sale time of 57 days, with starter homes right behind at 59 days. The median list-to-sale time on Trulia has decreased every year since 2010 and is down 53.3% overall for that period from 137 days in April of that year to 64 days in April of this year. The last record-low was 71 days, back in July 2017.

Home Values Increase In All 50 States Year Over Year

Home prices increased 6.9% nationally from April 2017 to April 2018, and increased 1.2% from the prior month, according to the latest Home Price Index report from CoreLogic.

An analysis of home values in the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas based on housing stock, indicates 40% of metropolitan areas had an overvalued housing market as of April 2018. Another 28% of the top 100 metropolitan areas were undervalued while 32% were at value.

The national home-price index is projected to increase by 5.3% from April 2018 to April 2019.

101 Insider Tips To Cut The Rising Costs Of Construction

The rising prices of labor, land and materials are all increasing the cost of construction, and relief is not in sight. Construction firm, Skender, has tapped the experienced industry professionals to amass an insider list of practical ways to drive up quality, without a similar increase in cost.

While the eBook delivers high-level concepts specific to several project types—including corporate interiors, affordable housing, senior living, new office buildings, multifamily, hospitality, higher education, retail and healthcare—more than half of the tips can apply to any construction project.

Download the 18-page eBook 101 Ways To Build Smarter for free >

Why Push for More Affordability?

Housing shortages, financially overburdened households, and a growing share of local residents’ sheer lack of access to adequate housing options have become bigger problems than housing itself, and at the same time shattered the barriers of locality, of economic strata, of the business sector. America’s for-profit, market-rate leading players need to concern themselves with a growing housing attainability crisis for two reasons:

1. Inevitably, a disrupter–not just a technological disrupter, but one who can holistically disrupt successful and established incumbent players in construction, real estate, investment, consumer retail, design, engineering, and local policy–will emerge in the space to begin filling the vacuum left by enterprises whose business and operational models are currently too unwieldy to serve.

2. If housing’s for-profit, market rate-oriented enterprises do not try to solve for unaffordability among more people in more markets, they’ll remain cut off from the lifeblood of their own longer-term viability: the next generation of leaders.