BuildFax, Austin, a provider of property condition and history insights for insurance and financial institutions, released a report Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s Commerce Dept. report on housing starts and building permits that showed single-family permits in July rose at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77%.
Among its findings:
- New Housing Supply:
- Single-family housing authorizations increased at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.62% from June to July of 2018.
- Existing Housing Maintenance:
- The annual rate of housing maintenance volume increased 5.23%.
- Housing maintenance spend increased at an annual rate of 8.04.
- Existing Housing Remodels:
- The annual rate of remodel volume remained flat with a 0.26% decrease.
- Remodel spend increased at an annual rate of 8.96.
“We are not seeing a large bounce-back from the decline in June housing authorizations,” said BuildFax COO Jonathan Kanarek. “However, we have to remember that all three categories—new housing, remodels and maintenance—are at historically high levels. Remodeling alone is up 30% in the last five years. The slight dip in remodeling volume may be an early indicator of a leveling off of the very hot housing construction market we’ve seen in the last few years.”
