“Alms, alms, alms for the poor homebuilders.”

I don’t know how much sympathy there is out there for people like Bill Owens, but he and his ilk are suffering from severe depression.

Bill’s a Worthington-based builder and remodeler. On Monday, it was left to Owens, who holds the rotating NAHB chairmanship, to editorialize around the worst macroeconomic environment for his trade in 14 years.

The association’s main measure of builder moods printed a truly pitiable 29 for October, below estimates and, more notably, below April 2020’s 30 readout, the “modern” nadir.

There’s the long-term chart. Without mincing words, it’s a disaster: Sentiment’s only been worse in the aftermath of the GFC (which is to say during the long hangover from the subprime collapse) and during the 1990-1991 recession (following the S&L crisis).

Owens tried to throw Trump a bone, praising the administration’s “efforts to advance regulatory reform,” but the reality of builders’ predicament is as unavoidable as it is grim.

“Mortgage rates have climbed well above 7%, and higher gas prices and inflation have further weakened buyer traffic across much of the country,” Owens sighed, adding that builders are also grappling with worker shortages “tied [to] immigration enforcement activity, causing construction delays,” as even legal workers (note the emphasis) are afraid to report to job sites.

There was no solace to be had from the forward-looking measure of future sales, which fell to a miserable 32, the lowest in nearly four years. And a measure of foot traffic dropped to the lowest since April of 2012 if you exclude the COVID lockdowns.

For context, that foot traffic metric is now down 44% since Trump took office for the second time.

“Housing remains squeezed by supply-side constraints and significant affordability challenges,” long-time NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz remarked. “Weaker consumer confidence [is] keeping more buyers on the sidelines.”

Kevin Hassett offered a slightly different assessment. “People are really euphoric about how well the economy is doing,” he told CNBC on Monday.