Single-family home construction is booming, despite higher mortgage rates

This is a big week for housing data. We learned Monday that homebuilders are feeling pretty optimistic about the housing market. We also heard Bloomberg’s Conor Sen say: “We’re probably going to see the highest rate of new construction this year for single-family homes since probably the 2008 crisis.” 

And Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau put out February’s data on housing starts, building permits and new home completions. Sure enough, all of them were up — both month over month and year over year. 

Now, these numbers are notoriously volatile. But they do still tell us something. Typically. when interest rates go up, new home construction slows down.

“Builders would say, ‘OK, higher interest rates mean fewer buyers. We don’t want to continue to build,'” said Ali Wolf at the housing data and consultancy firm Zonda.

But, she said, that’s not what’s been happening lately.

“What we’ve seen is actually higher interest rates have meant that the resale inventory continues to be really tight, and builders are finding a huge opportunity today. And right now they’re building, building, building.”

That’s likely to continue, she said. According to Zonda’s data, 80% of homebuilders say they plan to build more this year than last.

Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, said what they’re building is shifting.

“Single-family starts are on the rise,” she said. “On the other side, though, we’re seeing that multifamily construction, which really peaked last year. That’s where we’re seeing a lot of slowdown.”

That’s in part, she said, because rents have started softening in some parts of the country, whereas the demand for single-family homes to buy remains high. 

Even with all of this new construction, Hannah Jones, a senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com, said there’s still a big gap between supply and demand.

“The housing market is still vastly undersupplied,” she said. “This just is bringing us back towards more balance, and we have a really long way to go.”

A lot depends on where you live.

Wolf of Zonda said most of these new single-family homes are being built in suburbs — far from downtown areas in certain parts of the country.

“We’re finding that pockets of the Midwest, Southeast, Southwest have seen big increases in new housing supply coming online,” she said.

But the Northeast and the West Coast? Not so much.