Residential Market Dashboard

MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING STARTS Source: U.S. Census Bureau Multi-family housing starts have been on a tear the past few years, but have been slowing down since mid year and are expected to decline on national basis over the next two years, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Washington, D.C.

Jim Lucy

Dec. 10, 2015

MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING STARTS

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Multi-family housing starts have been on a tear the past few years, but have been slowing down since mid year and are expected to decline on national basis over the next two years, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), Washington, D.C.

SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSING STARTS

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Single-family housing starts are expected to be a key market driver over the next two years, according to NAHB.

HOUSING FORECAST

Source: National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)

Construction industry economists expect big things from the homebuilding market in 2016. That’s good news for the electrical market, because once home buyers move into new developments, light retail and commercial construction like supermarkets, gas stations and restaurants typically follow. The 20%-plus increases NAHB is forecasting for single-family construction in 2016 and 2017 are impressive, but the data is mildly deceiving because these increases are coming off of some historically low levels of building activity in the Great Recession. Still, the population demographic trends are in place for a big move up, as Gen Xers and millienials are entering the entry-level market in droves.

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About the Author

Jim Lucy

Editor-in-Chief of Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing

Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 40 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing newsletter, and as a contributing writer for EC&M magazine During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement.

Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted with his wife and three sons in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 30 years.