U.S. Home Builder Confidence Rises in April

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The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reports this week that builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in April rose four points to a level of 56 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).

"As the spring buying season gets underway, home builders are confident that current low interest rates and continued job growth will draw consumers to the market," said NAHB Chairman Tom Woods, a home builder from Blue Springs, Mo.

"The HMI component index measuring future sales expectations rose five points in April to its highest level of the year," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "This uptick shows builders are feeling optimistic that the housing market will continue to strengthen throughout 2015."

Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for 30 years, the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as "good," "fair" or "poor." The survey also asks builders to rate traffic of prospective buyers as "high to very high," "average" or "low to very low." Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.

All three HMI components registered gains in April. The component charting sales expectations in the next six months jumped five points to 64, the index measuring buyer traffic increased four points to 41, and the component gauging current sales conditions rose three points to 61.

Looking at the three-month moving averages for regional HMI scores, the South rose one point to 56 and the Northwest held steady at 42. The Midwest fell by two points to 54 and the West dropped three points to 58.