Housing Industry 2026

Top insights for US Housing Markets:

Using 2019 as a baseline, Black Knight estimates an expected 5.7 million 2020 residential home sales would have totaled over $1.8 trillion in contract volume.

As prices for new homes are expected to remain flat, and hence reduce profit margins for home builders, it is estimated that real (inflation adjusted) residential investment declined by 1.7% in 2019, and will grow by 1.6% in 2020, and will decline again by 1.2% in 2021.

Single-family home sales were at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.17 million in February, up from 4.82 million in January, and up 7.3% from a year ago.

Residential investment rose by 5.8% in Q4 as home sales accelerated, but business investment slipped by 1.5%, weighed down by sluggish exports and trade uncertainty.

Housing demand is expected to remain around its long-term trend of 5 million home sales per year over the next year or so due to a tight labor market, rising wages and low mortgage interest rates.

New home sales increased in December 2018 after bottoming in October and increased in March to the highest level since November 2017, but declined 6.9% in April; however, sales are up 7.0% over the last 12 months Household formation continues to rise gradually - the five-year annual average = 1.27 million in 2019 Q1; 2018 Q4 = 1.23 million; most recent four-quarter average = 1.58 million Home ownership rate was 64.3 in 2019 Q1 compared to 64.6% in 2018 Q4, reversing slightly the modest improvement that had occurred over the past two years.