January new home sales fall 17.6%, weather and rates in focus
January new home sales fell to a 587,000 annual rate, down 17.6% from December, with prices at $400,500, after a positive sales year in 2025.
Residential Real Estate
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Spanberger’s Virginia housing agenda falls short on local pushback
New Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s first-year housing agenda delivered new money and new tools for affordable housing preservation, but it fell short on the package’s biggest supply-side proposal: a statewide push to allow multifamily housing by right in many commercially zoned areas. A pair of bills would have required local zoning codes to allow multifamily […]
Homebuilder confidence nudges up but remains below par
Builder confidence stayed at 38 in March, with 37% cutting prices and oil near $100 per barrel adding pressure to demand and costs.
Wyoming refund exposes legal risk for local housing fee ordinances
Small wins on impact fees occasionally occur in costly U.S. housing markets. Teton County, Wyoming, officials agreed last week to refund a $24,325 “affordable workforce housing” fee that a homeowner had to pay to obtain a permit to build a single-family home. The payment settles a lawsuit the homeowner filed last year in a Wyoming […]
Hajime Construction Buys 51% of Utah Builder Wright Homes
Japan-based real estate and construction giants have spent the past decade quietly building footholds across the U.S. housing market. By early 2026, those footholds are transforming into a noticeable wave of expansion. The latest development comes from Tokyo-based Hajime Construction Co., Ltd., which announced on March 10 that it has acquired a 51% equity stake […]
Congress nears a housing deal and the investor fight is inside it
Congress is closing in on a major housing legislation moment. The bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, now moving from the Senate to House reconciliation after overwhelming procedural votes, stands as one of the most serious attempts in more than a generation to confront America’s housing affordability crisis. With the ballast of provisions aimed at […]
Builders gut check what buyers may like vs. what they’ll pay for
Homebuilders lean into multifunctional rooms, storage-first kitchens, and warm palettes as generations trade size for affordability.
Builders started 2026 with margin pressure, then came Iran war risk
Making less money but making steady headway may be a crude way to boil down what early 2026 was looking like for many homebuilding business leaders. Public homebuilder execs were not discussing a plain-and-simple “recovery trade.” The most consistent post-earnings themes – across demand, pricing, margins and capital strategy – indicated a market that is […]
New York’s housing crisis won’t be solved by one mega-project
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s attempt to revive an old plan to build 12,000 affordable units over a borough railyard is seen as a long shot, even if he gains support from President Trump. Mamdani has garnered headline attention for proposing to build units on a platform above Sunnyside Yard, a 180-acre freight and […]
Here’s what will actually move the needle on housing affordability
Housing affordability continues to dominate the headlines, but most proposed “solutions” rely on assumptions that are either unlikely or insufficient on their own. Falling interest rates, off-site construction, government subsidies and value engineering all play a role. None of them – individually or even together – as they are currently being pursued, will move the […]