Homebuilder Comments in Mid-April: Crazy Price Increases, Offers Way Over Ask, Costs Increasing Quickly

Some twitter comments from Rick Palacios Jr., Director of Research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting

Some interesting housing color from mid-April around the country home builder channel check. Bunch of market commentary to follow...will try to hit most top markets.

#SaltLakeCity home builder mid-April color: “Still have 10x buyers to available homes to buy. Went to 'highest/ best' offer system March 1st & offers over asking price are shocking. Most offers are 10+% over ask, that's after raised base prices $10K to $20K+ with each release.”

#Austin home builder mid-April color: “Super high demand. Volume controlled with release process, otherwise would be unbearable. Some price increases are $100K between releases.”

#Dallas home builder mid-April color: “Limiting sales in 100% of communities. Can’t sell ahead as costs are rising too quickly. We may stop selling and become a spec builder until costs stabilize.”

#Houston home builder mid-April color: “Increasing prices 2% to 3% a month to keep up with costs.”

#LasVegas home builder mid-April color: “Only selling homes under construction, no dirt sales due to the variability of construction costs. Waiting lists at pretty much every community and restricting investors.”

#Phoenix home builder mid-April color: “Continue restricting sales but priority lists are increasing and buyers seem accustomed to the rising prices and are still anxious to move forward. Price increases each week/each release.”

#Denver home builder mid-April color: “Doing price increases twice a month.”

#RaleighDurham home builder mid-April color: “Opening 4 new neighborhoods and seeing tremendous pre-sale interest (checks, etc… prior to us releasing prices).”

#Nashville home builder mid-April color: “Limiting most of our sales to inventory releases when a home is through the framing stage where a reasonably accurate delivery date can be given.”

#Charlotte home builder mid-April color: “Capping sales at 4 per month for each community, which is frustrating customers. Finished lots are golden.”

#RiversideSanBernardino home builder mid-April color: “Anyone walking in is a buyer. There are no looky-loos. Raising prices at an obscene level.”

#OrangeCounty home builder mid-April color: “Raising prices materially each sales phase release. It’s crazy, but so are our costs. Many of the homes are being bought by investors.”

#Seattle home builder mid-April color: “We have monthly price increases per community. All have escalators in multiple offers we are getting, ranging from $20k to $200k over list price. Offer reviews are pushing pricing beyond our list price by 10% or more.”

#Portland home builder mid-April color: “Can’t price them high enough…they’re selling anyway…for now, at least.”

#Boise home builder mid-April color: “Restricting sales until closer to homes being finished.”

#DC home builder mid-April color: “Increasing prices pretty much everywhere.”

#Boston home builder mid-April color: “When homes are released, they go almost immediately. Sales as strong as I can remember. Pushing price on every release with no resistance.”

#SanJose home builder mid-April color: “Running out of inventory. Sales remain strong, starting to hold back releases until construction can catch up.”

#EastBayCA home builder mid-April color: “Swamped right now. Still seeing a lot of traffic, increases prices and totally sold out with very little (if any) inventory.”

#Indianapolis home builder mid-April color: “Traffic down slightly from March but still well over our normal volume. Restricting sales as demand is still really strong. Stopped taking VIPs because list of interested buyers is longer than the number of lots we have.”

#Chicago home builder mid-April color: “Concern about the overpaying and that when Covid settles down there could be some big hits taken.”

#WestPalmBeach home builder mid-April color: “Sales are still strong although it feels like pricing has peaked, too soon to tell. In certain locations our increases have finally started to slow sales from the frenetic pace.”

#Jacksonville home builder mid-April color: “Sales are restricted to 85% of neighborhoods. Drawings for lots and highest/best offers are some of methods used to select buyers. Continue raising prices, no differences among segments.”

#Jacksonville & #Orlando home builder mid-April color: “Seeing investors back in play in some of our markets. Sales caps in many communities but not all markets yet.”

#Naples & #Sarasota home builder mid-April color: “We dramatically restricted sales in order to keep up with our backlog. Our slowdown is intentional.”

#Orlando, #Jacksonville, #Tampa home builder mid-April color: “Some of our competitors have closed models to traffic or will not release homes until they get past a certain stage.”

#Tampa home builder mid-April color: “We will likely turn off sales early again this month.” THE END