NAHB Survey: Buyer Traffic Down Across the Board

As the coronavirus continues to slow down the economy, the effects become increasingly apparent in each NAHB survey. In the organization’s week 3 survey of the coronavirus’ impact on the single-family housing market, 96 percent of respondents said that buyer traffic is down, up from an already high 93 percent last week. Additionally, a growing number of workers concerned about the virus are reluctant to report to job sites in all four regions, especially in the Midwest: In the week 1 survey, 40 percent of Midwestern builders said workers were reluctant. Now, that figure stands at 85 percent. Read the rest of the survey results to see how responses have changed and what new issues have arisen since NAHB first started keeping track.

Traffic of prospective buyers remains the most adverse impact of the coronavirus to builders in week 3 of NAHB’s single-family survey, with 96% of builders reporting the virus was having at least some effect on the number of prospective buyers — up from 93% in the week 2 survey.

Cancellations or delays of existing remodeling projects is the second greatest challenge, affecting 87% of builders compared to 82% of builders in week 2. The length of time to obtain a plan review for a single-family home also affected a greater percentage of respondents, increasing from 80% in week 2 to 86% in week 3.

This result is based on 256 responses collected online between March 31 and April 6. As in the first two weeks of the poll, the largest share of responses in week 3 came from single-family home builders; most were owner, president or CEO of their companies. The geographic distribution of the responses continues to be somewhat variable, with the share from the Northeast increasing regularly, from 6% in week 1 to 15% in week 3.

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