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A growing collection of essays on single-family housing — sortable by topic, year, and depth. Charts, policy reads, and notes on homebuilding.
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Another Executive Order : The Show That Never Ends
We’re Certain That Emerson, Lake & Palmer Did Not Anticipate The 2026 Mid-Term Election Or The Grandstanding Of Congress And The President Alike
Read essay →2026
17 essays
Oct 25 Builder Report : NVR Sales and Earnings Down Steeply The Market Challenges For All Home Builders Show In The Numbers 2 min Oct 22 Financial Rationality Wins Builders Are Slowing New Home Construction Despite Claims Of A Housing Shortage 6 min Oct 16 Builders Builder Report : Lennar’s Horrendous Q3 EPS For The Nation’s Second Largest Homebuilder Declined Almost 50% Year-Over-Year 8 min Sep 17 Declining Interest Rates Will Not Deliver Housing Affordability The Spiking Treasury Yield, Inflation, And Federal Reserve Restrictive Rate Policy Will Be A Floor Under Mortgage Rates, Undermining Affordability Relief Through Lower Borrowing Costs 10 min Sep 5 Data Digs Data Dig : New Single-Family Home Sales and Starts Through July 2026 New Single-Family Home Sales, Prices, And Starts All Declined Since March, Giving No Help To The “Housing Supply Shortage” 5 min Aug 14 Increasing For-Sale Housing Supply Is Not Profitable Increasing The Volume Of Home Construction Will Not Reduce Builder Costs Materially But Will Diminish Builder Profit 12 min Jul 28 Data DigsEconomics Data Dig : Lower Housing Vacancy May Not Mean Housing Is In Short Supply The Twenty-Year Housing Vacancy Rate Trend May Not Support The Assertion That Housing Is In Short Supply 7 min Jul 24 Data Digs Data Dig : Sizing The Housing Supply Shortfall Historically Low Housing Affordability Is A Supply Problem, According To Economists, Researchers, And Our Ever-Wise Politicians 8 min Jul 17 Data Digs Data Dig : Home Prices, Inflation, and a Housing Affordability Reality Check Inflation In All Categories Erodes Home Purchasing and Renting Power 7 min Jul 10 Rising Rates, Rising Prices, Stable Inventory The combination of rising interest rates and prices and stable inventory pushed existing home sales down and prices up, and the Federal Reserve Will Not Help Thaw the Housing Market 3 min Jul 5 More ROAD Details Point to a Short and Pointless Destination Trumpeted as a the "Heart of the Bill", the Local Government Grant Program Is Underfunded and Unappealing 10 min Jul 1 An Inflation Backlog and a Dismal Fed Forecast Producer Prices Are Rising Faster Than Consumer Prices 3 min Jun 27 The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Is a Circular Road This Housing Bill Does Very Little to Address Home Affordability and Leaves the Horizon for Aspiring Home Buyers Unchanged 7 min Jun 26 Housing Starts Plummet While Existing Home Inventory Stagnates New Home Sales Were Down in May 2026 7.3% from April and 6.8% from May 2025, Surprising Only the Inattentive 4 min Jun 23 Data Roundup and Dig : Inflation, Wages, Social Security and Medicare, and a Hawkish Fed Higher inflation and solid job growth point to a strong U.S. economy while federal fiscal irresponsibility is becoming harder to ignore, all of which bodes poorly for lower interest rates 11 min Jun 6 The Call Is Coming From Inside The House The Federal Debt Is Frightening, Growing, and the Day of Reckoning Is Near 7 min Apr 30 Data Digs Data Dig : Single-Family Housing Starts March 2026 Anticipation of Warmer Weather and of Mortgage Rate Decline Likely Caused Single-Family Starts to Jump in March 2026, but the Trend May Not Continue 3 min