Concrete Products covers the issues that attract producers of ready mixed and manufactured concrete focusing on equipment and material technology, market development and management topics.
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60 • January 2015 www.concreteproducts.com READY TO WORK M I X E R T R U C K S I N S T O C K HOUSBY.COM 515-299-6248 866-218-6266 HOUSBY.COM ONLINE SALES HELD TWICE MONTHLY FORMERLY VOCON AUCTIONS - SAME OWNERSHIP/MANAGEMENT FEATURE MARKET OUTLOOK HOME BUILDING GAUGE Following a four-point uptick the prior month, builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes fell one point in December to a level of 57 on the National Association of Home Build- ers/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). "Members in many markets across the country have seen their businesses improve over the course of the year, and we expect build- ers to remain confident in 2015," said NAHB Chairman Kevin Kelly, a Wilmington, Del., builder and developer. "After a sluggish start to 2014, the HMI has stabilized in the mid-to-high 50s index level trend for the past six months, which is consistent with our assessment that we are in a slow march back to normal," added NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "As we head into 2015, the housing market should continue to recover at a steady, gradual pace." Derived from a monthly survey NAHB has conducted for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current sin- gle-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as "good," "fair" or "poor." It also asks builders to rate traffic of pro- spective buyers as "high to very high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores from each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor. Two of the three HMI components posted slight losses in Decem- ber. The index gauging current sales conditions fell one point to 61, while ones measuring expectations for future sales and prospec- tive buyer traffic dropped a single point to 65 and held steady at 45, respectivley. Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the West rose by four points to 62 and the North- east edged up one point to 45, while the Midwest registered a three- point loss to 54 and the South dropped two points to 60. The HMI data followed a NAHB report indicating nationwide hous- ing starts had surpassed 1 million in November, marking the fifth month the critical watermark had been reached in 2014, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Census Bureau figures. Total housing production fell slightly—down 1.6 per- cent from in November from October—to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.028 million units. Three-month moving averages for total and single-family production were at their highest levels since the Great Recession. "These numbers are in line with our latest surveys, which show that single-family builders are confident that the market is gradually recovering," noted Kelly upon release of the housing start data. "Over the course of the year, the number of houses under con- struction has been on an upward trajectory, signaling that housing is moving forward," explained Crowe. "With strong demand, affordable home prices and favorable interest rates, we should see housing pro- duction continue to grow into 2015." Single-family housing starts were down 5.4 percent to a season- ally adjusted annual rate of 677,000 units in November, while mul- tifamily production rose 6.7 percent to 351,000 units. Regionally in November, combined housing production increased in the Northeast, Midwest, and West, with respective gains of 8.7 percent, 14.4 per- cent, and 28.1 percent. However, total production dropped in the South by 19.5 percent.