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 headline readout of 38, while responses gathered after Donald Trump postponed those same tariffs suggested a higher reading of 44.

One month and countless tariff reversals later, and the marquee gauge of builder moods has settled closer to the tariff-scare scenario, which is understandable because there’s still no clarity on US trade policy.

“Builders continue to face elevated building material costs that are exacerbated by tariff issues,” NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes said Monday. I don’t know how he voted, but he’s a “Buddy.” And he’s from North Carolina, so…

Anyway, Hughes went on to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, noting that “builders are starting to see relief on the regulatory front to bend the rising cost curve.” Yeah, buddy.

An NAHB measure of prospective buyers dropped to just 24 in March, the lowest since late 2023. A metric of forward-looking single-family demand stayed parked at its most subdued levels since June.

As a reminder, the headline mood gauge has struggled to stay above the 50 threshold which separates net optimism from pessimism.

NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz was pretty direct on Monday in the color accompanying the release. “Construction firms are facing added cost pressures from tariffs,” he said, adding that “builders estimate a typical cost effect from recent tariff actions at $9,200 per home.”

There you go. I don’t pretend to know the details of that math, but it’s builders’ own estimate and builders generally go for Trump at the ballot box. Even they say “recent tariff actions” are likely to push up the cost to build a home by more than $9,000.

Those would be the same builders who’re already struggling to preserve margin amid higher labor costs and the necessity of employing incentives to help hopelessly stretched buyers make the math work, and the same builders who, according to government data, are sitting on the largest glut of for-sale new homes since 2007.

Dietz also lamented that “uncertainty on policy is having a negative impact on home buyers and development decisions.”

Asked by CNBC on Monday whether markets can expect more tariff uncertainty over the next several weeks, Kevin Hassett said, “Absolutely.”