NAHB Housing Market Index: Confidence Falls Two Points In May -

NAHB Housing Market Index: Confidence Falls Two Points In May

May 18, 2015Jeremy ParkinsonFinance0

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook.

The latest reading of 54, down two points from the previous month, was below the Investing.com forecast of 57.

Here is the opening of this morning’s monthly report:

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in May dropped two points to a level of 54 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. It is a nine-point increase from the May 2014 reading of 45.
[link to report]

Here is the historical series, which dates from 1985.

The HMI correlates fairly closely with broad measures of consumer confidence. Here is a pair of overlays with the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index and the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index.