Single-family attached housing starts totaled 38,000 units in Q3 2022, 12% higher than the third quarter of 2021, according to NAHB Eye on Housing. Similarly, townhouse construction starts totaled 152,000 units over the last four quarters, an annual gain of 7%. On a one-year moving average, the market share of newly-built townhouses increased to 14% of all single-family starts, and despite a market correction, long-run prospects for townhouse construction remain positive.
As denser areas reopened following covid later, the townhouse market rebounded later. Moreover, as the spec single-family building market slows on higher interest rates, the townhouse construction market share will rise.
The peak market share of the last two decades for townhouse construction was set during the first quarter of 2008, when the percentage reached 14.6%, on a one-year moving average basis, of total single-family construction. This high point was set after a fairly consistent increase in the share beginning in the early 1990s. We are likely to see a new peak market share in the quarters ahead.
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