The National Association of Home Builders was out Friday with its latest poll, which indicates mounting pressure on the home building industry due to COVID-19. Eye on Housing reports:
The second week of NAHB’s online poll showed that several of the coronavirus’s impacts on the residential construction industry have become more widespread and severe. Once again, traffic ranked as the most widespread problem, with 93% of respondents saying the coronavirus has had an adverse impact on traffic of prospective buyers.
This result is based on 318 responses collected online between March 24 and March 30. As in week 1, the largest share of responses came from single-family home builders; and respondents were most often owner, president or CEO of their companies. The geographic distribution was somewhat different in week 2, however, with a greater share of responses coming from the Northeast and West Census regions.
The week 2 poll listed eight possible impacts of the coronavirus and asked if each has so far had a major, minor, or no adverse effect on respondents’ businesses. After traffic, 89% of respondents for whom the item was applicable said the virus was having a noticeable, adverse impact on homeowners’ concerns about interacting with remodeling crews, followed by the rate at which inquiries for remodeling work are coming in (86%), cancellations or delays of existing remodeling projects (82%), how long it takes to obtain a plan review for a typical single-family home (80%), and how long it takes the local building department to respond to a request for an inspection (78%). The least common problems on the list were supply of building products and materials and willingness of workers and subs to report to a construction site, but even these were cited as a virus-induced problem by over three-fifths of the respondents.
