
US Homebuilder Sentiment Crumbles Further On Tariff Chaos
Did you hear? There's a real estate developer in the White House.
That means builder confidence should be through the roof, right? Right?!
Not so much, actually. On Monday, the NAHB's gauge of builder moods printed a truly unfortunate 39 for March, down from February's already poor read, a miss to consensus and below every estimate from two-dozen economists.
Recall that in February, responses to the NAHB survey gathered prior to the announcement of tariffs on Canada and Mexico tipped a headli
Every day, I wonder whether if it will register with these folks where the problem lies. I know it’s hard for people to admit they were wrong, but sometimes the answer is so blatantly obvious and going to be very bad for your own pocketbook that you’d think it’d sink in. Maybe they expect Trump to fully do away with all building codes to offset other pricing pressures because otherwise I’m not sure how these folks will make the math work on new development.
Back when I was just out of college, I went to Armenia with Habitat for Humanity and they were helping families move out of literal shipping containers that were used as housing after a major earthquake 20 years earlier. I think we might be at the point where we will need to repurpose excess shipping containers for our own housing needs.
Much cheaper for the Real Estate Developer in Chief to build in Russia. Just need to get that little nuisance war out of the way.
Or Gaza