Home Building Geography Index (HBGI)
The Home Building Geography Index (HBGI) is a quarterly measurement of building conditions across the country and uses county-level information about single-family and multifamily permits to gauge housing construction growth in various submarkets. The fourth quarter of 2023 rollout of the HBGI focuses on the population density-based delineation of home building that has been the mainstay of the HBGI while also including building analysis based of coastal vs. non-coastal counties.
The latest findings illustrate that labor shortages, supply shortages and higher mortgage rates continue to be issues for the single-family and multifamily markets. Other key findings for fourth quarter of 2023 include:
- The year-over-year growth rates for many single-family markets increased from the first quarter of 2023 through the last three months of the year, with only micro counties having a lower growth rate in the fourth quarter among all markets compared to the first quarter.
- In the multifamily sector, growth rates were negative or holding steady in the nation’s largest metro and suburban counties, while growth rates exhibited the strongest readings in lower density areas.