Business Contact Surveys: Construction and Real Estate
June 2012
Southeast homebuilders and residential brokers continued to report that sales increased on a year-over-year basis in April. Eighty percent of brokers reported sales gains, while 55 percent of builders reported that sales were up compared with a year earlier.
Both builders and brokers indicated that home inventories continued to decline on a year-over-year basis. Most builders reported that new home inventories were unchanged from March to April. Most brokers indicated that home inventories were flat to down.
The majority of Southeast brokers and builders indicated that home prices were flat to slightly up on a year-over-year basis.
Southeast residential brokers and builders indicated that buyer traffic remained ahead of the year-earlier level in April.
Southeast brokers and homebuilders expect that year-over-year home sales growth will remain positive over the next several months.
Southeast builders reported that construction activity remained ahead of the year-earlier level in April, and the outlook is for construction to remain positive.
The poll results are based on responses from 70 residential brokers and 38 builders. Responses were collected May 7–17, 2012.
The housing survey's diffusion indexes are calculated as the percentage of total respondents reporting increases minus the percentage reporting declines. Positive values in the index indicate increased activity; negative values indicate decreased activity.