(Reuters) – Confidence among U.S. single-family homebuilders fell for a record 12th straight month in December as even a scramble to offer incentives for prospective buyers fails to boost traffic and lift sales in the current high-inflation environment.
Kicking off a week of key reports on the health of the U.S. housing market, the National Association of Home Builders on Monday said its NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market index dropped two points to 31 this month, falling short of the median estimate of 34 among economists in a Reuters poll. A reading above 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good rather than poor.
With the exception of the short-lived plunge during the spring of 2020 when the country locked down during the first wave of COVID-19, December’s reading marked the lowest since June 2012. Moreover, the unbroken string of declines since last December is the longest in a series that dates to the mid-1980s.
The housing market has seen the most pronounced effects so far of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes aimed at quashing inflation that continues to hold at unacceptably high levels. Interest rates on the most popular type of U.S. home loan topped 7% – the highest since 2001 – in October, and sales of new and existing homes tumbled by more than 30% from January through October.
Since March, the U.S. central bank has lifted its benchmark policy rate from near zero to a range of 4.25%-4.50%. It indicated at its meeting last week that rate hikes will continue into next year until it is fully confident inflation is declining from the four-decade highs touched in mid-2022 back toward its targeted level of 2% at an annual rate.
NAHB said nearly two-thirds of builders were offering incentives, including mortgage rate buydowns, paying points for buyers and price reductions. While the percentage actually cutting prices outright dipped marginally to 35%, the average discount offered rose to 8% from between 5% and 6% earlier in the year.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
