America’s homebuyers have had an extraordinarily difficult few years. Heavy demand and scarce inventory in late 2020 and 2021 led to record growth in prices, while a run of high inflation throughout the economy made it more difficult to save…
After two years of stiff competition and fast-rising prices, the residential housing market in the U.S. began cooling quickly over the second half of 2022 and beginning of 2023. After home prices rose approximately 40% in a two-year span, many…
Homeownership offers the opportunity to accumulate wealth and keep housing costs relatively consistent over time, both of which contribute to financial stability. However, homeownership benefits have not been experienced equally. Significant racial disparities in homeownership rates have persisted for decades,…
Despite home prices starting to stabilize, becoming a homeowner remains largely out of reach for many Americans. According to The Cato Institute’s 2022 Housing Affordability National Survey, 87% of Americans are concerned about the cost of housing. In the same…
Roadways are a vital component of infrastructure in the United States. The vast majority of goods are transported by truck, highlighting the economy’s need for reliable roadways to connect supply chains and move goods and services efficiently across borders. Most…
After a record-setting surge in home prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, the cooling of the real estate market seems to have fully set in. Mortgage rates doubled over the course of 2022 as the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates…
As concerns over climate change continue to grow, there has been a sustained effort towards electrification, or the process of replacing technologies that use fossil fuels (including coal, oil, and natural gas) with technologies that use electricity for energy. States…
The COVID-19 pandemic brought dramatic changes to the U.S. housing market. At the onset of the pandemic, housing sales and new construction initially stalled due to economic uncertainty. But as the U.S. entered survival mode and the federal funds rate…
Mortgage interest rates are now more than double what they were in early 2021. As a result, rising home prices have started to slow down, but not by enough to offset the increased borrowing costs caused by higher rates. Home…
The red-hot pandemic housing market has finally cooled in recent months. Due to actions by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation, mortgage rates have more than doubled from the historic lows seen in 2021. As a result, home sales have…
The housing market is entering the traditionally quieter winter season, but recent indicators suggest that the market has already been slowing in the last few months. New listings, pending sales, and prices are all on the decline, signs of rapid…
After slowing down in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. rental housing market has more than rebounded. As the housing market boomed, so did the rental market. Rents have risen sharply as demand has grown and supply…
After hitting record lows in August of 2021, mortgage interest rates have been steadily rising. Recent actions by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation have caused mortgage rates to double since the start of the year. While home prices are…
In recent years, policymakers and economic experts have embraced efforts to bring more manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. From the “America First” trade deals in the Trump Administration to historic investments in domestic manufacturing under the Biden Administration, industrial…
Despite inflation, rising interest rates, and recession fears, the outlook for the construction industry in the next few years appears positive. A midyear report from the American Institute of Architects projected 9.1% growth in nonresidential construction for the remainder of…
With inflation remaining high, interest rates rising quickly, and the prospect of a recession looming, the construction industry in the U.S. is beginning to see signs of contraction after two years of rapid growth. Since reaching a peak seasonally-adjusted annual…
The real estate market since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has been tough on all buyers, but aspiring first-time buyers may have struggled most of all. For much of 2020 and 2021, the housing market faced a challenging combination…
After slowing down at the beginning of the pandemic, the construction industry has bounced back, spurred on by the housing market boom. Construction employment reached 7.7 million in August, surpassing pre-COVID levels, and nearly matching peak construction employment in 2006.…
The last few years have brought rising demand for housing construction, home improvement projects, and durable goods. But amid supply chain challenges and an unusual labor market since the COVID-19 pandemic began, construction and related businesses have had a hard…
The construction industry in the U.S. has no shortage of demand these days. The intense real estate market of the last two-plus years highlighted the shortage of housing stock in the United States. Construction companies have been trying to catch…
