January 18,
2019 by HFBusiness Staff in General 
In many metropolitan areas, critically low inventories and subsequent skyrocketing home prices and rental rates are locking out new home buyers and impeding moves at a time when the economy is growing and employment is high. This is the first factoid in a series of five factoids that zeros in on markets hit the hardest with the housing shortage and those that are fairing better.
Once a problem faced mainly by big cities like San Francisco and New York, the demand for housing is far outweighing construction in both big and smaller-sized cities. Inventories are low almost everywhere impacting furniture and home furnishings purchases. During the period from 2011 when the housing market bust was in full swing to 2018, inventories among all metropolitan areas fell 56 percent. Among MSAs with housing unit populations over 500,000, inventories in 2018 dropped below 1.0 home for sale per 100 households. As the economy and housing market began to improve, the table shows the slight upswing in inventories in 2015, but a continual decline since.
Of the five states hit the hardest with the lowest housing inventories, California leads the way with only 0.44 homes for sale per 100 households, followed by District of Columbia with 0.47 and Massachusetts with 0.53. Washington State had the most dramatic decreases – inventory dropping 68 percent from 2011 to 2018 Q2 YTD.
Source: Zillow Inventory Data; Census Bureau Housing Units
Note: 2018 housing units have been estimated *Data is unavailable for Nevada and Indiana
July 21,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the final factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the continued growth of the post-recession Housing Industry. After years of fighting back from the housing bubble pop, the Housing Industry is finally on the mend and appears to be getting healthier by the year. Although still shy of 2007 pre-recession levels, housing appears to be catching up fast despite a couple of stumbles last year.
As the housing industry grows, vacancy rates among both Rentals and Homeowner units continue to decline. Rental vacancy rates at 6.9 percent are at their lowest in over 30 years, giving way to high rents. Meanwhile homeowner unit vacancies have also continued to drop to 1.7 percent in 2016 – the lowest in over 10 years.
The vacancy rate of rentals is lowest inside metro areas, both in principle cities and in the suburbs, compared to outside of metro areas. Inside metro areas for both urban (principal cities) and suburban areas have similar vacancy rates at 6.7 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. These rates have continued to fall over the last seven years. Meanwhile, vacancies outside metropolitan areas are much higher at 9.4 percent last year and have shown little improvement over the last few years.
For homeowner units, vacancy rates in the suburbs of metro areas are low at 1.5 percent in 2016 and only slightly higher at 1.9 percent in principal cities of metro areas. Vacancy rates outside metro areas are higher at 2.3 percent. Pent up demand from Millennials aging into their prime homeownership years combined with low vacancy rates have set the stage for good housing growth in the near future.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancies and Homeownership
July 14,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the third factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the continued growth of the post-recession Housing Industry. After years of fighting back from the housing bubble pop, the Housing Industry is finally on the mend and appears to be getting healthier by the year. Although still shy of 2007 pre-recession levels, housing appears to be catching up fast despite a couple of stumbles last year.
Despite the growth in new and existing home sales last year as shown in Factoids 1 and 2, New Housing Construction, specifically, multi-unit apartment construction fell considerably. After solid gains since 2011, combined growth of single and multi-unit construction went negative last year – falling 0.5 percent to 1.17 million units. Due to booming housing starts in January of this year, 2017 began 9.6 percent higher with a seasonally annualized average of 1.29 million units.
Single-family construction has maintained its upward trajectory since the Great Recession. However, 2016 single family units totaling 747,000 are still 23.1 percent below peak 2007 levels. Meanwhile multi-family construction at 392,000 units in 2016 are well below the 451,000 in 2015.
The flat growth in new construction was not a result of declining construction of single-family units. Growth has continued unstopped in recent years – increasing 7.5 percent from 2015 to 2016. Up 8.1 percent annualized, the first month of 2017 builds on the momentum.
The slowdown of total new housing construction came solely on the shoulders of multi-family apartments and condominiums where construction fell by 13 percent in 2016. On a positive note, authorized permits for the first month of 2017 are up 13.7 percent.
July 10,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the second factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the continued growth of the post-recession Housing Industry. After years of fighting back from the housing bubble pop, the Housing Industry is finally on the mend and appears to be getting healthier by the year. Although still shy of 2007 pre-recession levels, housing appears to be catching up fast despite a couple of stumbles last year.
The rate of growth slowed for existing home sales last year but unit sales approached pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, new home sales, while still well below pre-recession numbers, are catching up to pent up demand as housing construction steadily increases its new single family homebuilding.
Existing home sales grew consistently throughout the country last year. The Northeast region, the smallest in terms of home sales, was the fastest growing last year – up 5.7 percent 2015 to 2016 to 740,000 units plus an 8.1 percent boost (seasonally annualized) to start off 2017. Increasing 2.8 percent from 2015 to 2016, the South still leads the pack with 2.2 million existing houses sold in 2016. The Midwest had a slight decline from 2016 to January 2017 – down 0.8 percent to 1.3 million annualized resales, while the West had the biggest leap into 2017 – increasing 8.4 percent in January to 1.29 million annualized units. The next factoid will detail new housing construction.
Source: National Association of Realtors
*based on houses sold in January 2017
June 30,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the first factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the continued growth of the post-recession Housing Industry. After years of fighting back from the housing bubble pop, the Housing Industry is finally on the mend and appears to be getting healthier by the year. Although still shy of 2007 pre-recession levels, housing appears to be catching up fast despite a couple of stumbles last year.
The rate of growth slowed for existing home sales last year but unit sales approached pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, new home sales, while still well below pre-recession numbers, are catching up to pent up demand as housing construction steadily increases its new single family homebuilding.
Indexed growth for existing home sales in 2016 was only 3.6 percentage points shy of peak 2007 pre-recession sales. In 2016, 5.49 million existing homes were sold compared to 5.65 million in 2007. For new homes, the 559,000 units sold in 2016 were still 27.8 percent below the 769,000 sold in 2007. However, as construction has played catch-up to demand, new home sales have grown 82.7 percent since the recession bottom of 2011.
New home sales had a solid performance in 2016 – increasing 11.3 percent from 2015. However, sales are off to a slow start with January sales flat on a seasonally annualized basis.
Despite dipping in 2014, existing home sales have grown steadily in recent years – up 3.8 percent from 2015 to 2016 and another 4.4% jump into January of this year. The next factoid in this series will focus on Existing Home Sales by Region.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Rate for New Single-Family Houses Sold, National Association of Realtors
*based on houses sold in January 2017
June 23,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the final factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the growing emergence of a tax refund season. Many home furnishings advertising and sales events throughout the year focus either on a national holiday or “end of season” promotion. National holidays presumably give consumers an extra day to get out and shop and “end of season” events help retailers clear inventory off floors to make room for new merchandise. Only recently taking form across all consumer products is a sales event that focuses on when consumers actually have extra money to spend.
In a study last year, GOBankingRates.com conducted a Google consumer survey asking consumers if they received a refund and if so, how they plan to spend it. Based on the survey, 70 percent of consumers expected to receive a refund. The majority plan to either pay off debts or put the refund into savings. Almost 13 percent want to use their extra money for a vacation and roughly 13 percent plan to either make a major purchase such as a car or home or splurge on smaller purchases.
While the 13 percent of tax filers receiving a refund expect to spend this money on major or splurge purchases, this number goes up significantly to 17.1 percent for younger Millennials and down to 7 percent or less for consumers ages 55 and over.
Combining IRS statistics with the survey, in 2016, $18.26 billion was available for use on major purchases and splurge spending in February alone – 44.7 percent of the $40.82 billion for the year. An additional $22.6 billion is spread out over the following months – 19.1 percent in March and 13.2 percent in April. Now that efiling has streamlined income tax filing into an easy and fast turnaround for over 90 percent of consumers, a definitive purchasing season has emerged.
Source: GOBankingRates.com, 2016 Google Consumer Survey
June 16,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the third factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the growing emergence of a tax refund season. Many home furnishings advertising and sales events throughout the year focus either on a national holiday or “end of season” promotion. National holidays presumably give consumers an extra day to get out and shop and “end of season” events help retailers clear inventory off floors to make room for new merchandise. Only recently taking form across all consumer products is a sales event that focuses on when consumers actually have extra money to spend.
About 45 percent of last year’s tax refunds arrived in the month of February and an additional 22 percent were received in March. In the last two months of the first quarter of the year, consumers had $202 billion dollars of extra cash in their bank accounts.
In a study last year, GOBankingRates.com conducted a Google consumer survey asking consumers if they received a refund and if so, how they plan to spend it. Based on the survey, 70 percent of consumers expected to receive a refund. The majority plan to either pay off debts or put the refund into savings. Almost 13 percent want to use their extra money for a vacation and roughly 13 percent plan to either make a major purchase such as a car or home or splurge on smaller purchases.
Younger consumers are more likely to both receive refunds and also spend those refunds on consumer purchases as opposed to paying off debt or sticking in a savings account. For the key target groups for the Furniture Industry, 81.0 percent of older Millennials (25 to 34) and 73.3 percent of 35 to 44 year olds expect to receive a refund.
Source: GOBankingRates.com, 2016 Google Consumer Survey
June 9,
2017 by HFBusiness Staff in General
This is the second factoid in a series of four factoids detailing the growing emergence of a tax refund season. Many home furnishings advertising and sales events throughout the year focus either on a national holiday or “end of season” promotion. National holidays presumably give consumers an extra day to get out and shop and “end of season” events help retailers clear inventory off floors to make room for new merchandise. Only recently taking form across all consumer products is a sales event that focuses on when consumers actually have extra money to spend.
In the 2016 tax filing season, over 111 million tax filers received refunds out of the 152 million tax returns processed. At 82.7 percent in 2016, the vast majority of people filing in February are receiving refunds. 41.9 percent of the year’s filers or 46.5 million returns received refunds in February. Another 21.8 percent of filers received refunds in March and 16.2 percent in April with the remaining 20 percent getting money between May and December.
Almost half of the money paid out in tax refunds (44.7 percent) for the entire year occurred in February – $142 billion out of $318 billion. March accounted for 19.1 percent and April for 13.2 percent of total refund dollars. Less than one-quarter of refund dollars were paid in months May through December.
With an average refund of $2,860 during 2016, those filing early in February received refunds 6.8 percent higher at an average of $3,053. Both March and April were less – averaging $2,506 and $2,327. Surprisingly, those waiting to file later (between May and December), received an average of $3,271 per refund.
Source: Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 2016 Filing Season Statistics