NAHB Housing Market Index at 29: what building products marketers should do in Q1 2027

29

NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, October 2026 (preliminary)

Down three points from September and eight from October 2025's 37. It ties June 2012 as the lowest reading in more than 14 years.

Above 50, more builders see conditions as good than poor. Source: NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, released Oct. 19, 2026.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell three points to 29 in October 2026, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ release of Oct. 19, 2026. That ties June 2012 as the lowest reading in more than 14 years, and NAHB’s history table puts it eight points below October 2025. In the same survey, 43% of builders cut prices, the highest share NAHB has recorded for 2020 through 2026, and 65% used sales incentives.

Your builder customers are giving up margin to move houses. In the first quarter of 2027, a building products marketer should put money behind the dealers and pros who are already buying, sell installed cost and labor saved, and time paid media to the spring ramp in starts, which is steep in the Midwest and gentle in the South and West.

What the NAHB Housing Market Index and two other releases said in October 2026

Three releases published between Oct. 19 and Oct. 21, 2026 point the same way.

Builder confidence (NAHB, Oct. 19, 2026)

NAHB’s index is built from three questions. In October 2026, current sales conditions fell two points to 33, expectations for the next six months fell five points to 32, and traffic of prospective buyers fell five points to 18. The average price cut held at 6% for the seventh straight month. The single-month regional readings moved sharply. The West dropped from 30 to 20, the South slipped to 27, the Midwest fell to 35 and the Northeast rose to 37. NAHB itself leads with three-month averages for regions, which move less; on that basis every region fell.

Housing starts (Census Bureau, Oct. 20, 2026)

The Census Bureau reported September 2026 starts at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,221,000, down 5.2% from August and 7.4% from September 2025. Single-family starts were 859,000, and single-family permits fell 4.0% to 845,000. Read those monthly changes with care. Census flags that the 90% confidence interval on the 5.2% drop (plus or minus 11.8%) includes zero, so the month alone does not prove a decline. The year-to-date figures are firmer: single-family starts are down 4.0% through September, while buildings with five or more units are up 6.9%.

Architecture billings (AIA, Oct. 21, 2026)

The AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index fell to 44.7 in September 2026 from 47.2 in August. Like the PMI, it is a diffusion index, so a score under 50 means more firms reported falling billings than rising ones, and AIA said September had the largest share of firms reporting declining billings since May. Inquiries rose to 53.2, but the value of newly signed design contracts fell to 43.7. By sector, commercial and industrial firms were the only group above 50, at 50.9. Multifamily firms were at 42.9, and their backlogs shrank from 6.2 months in March to 4.8 months in September. AIA chief economist Richard Branch said that with fewer projects moving forward, “there is little reason to expect a meaningful improvement in business conditions in the near term.”

Release (date)	Headline	Detail that matters
NAHB/Wells Fargo HMI (Oct. 19, 2026)	29, down 3 points; ties June 2012 as the lowest in more than 14 years	43% of builders cut prices; average cut 6%; 65% used sales incentives
Census Bureau housing starts (Oct. 20, 2026)	1,221,000 a year, seasonally adjusted, down 5.2% from August (the 90% confidence interval includes zero)	Single-family starts down 4.0% year to date; buildings with five or more units up 6.9%
AIA/Deltek Architecture Billings Index (Oct. 21, 2026)	44.7, down from 47.2	Commercial and industrial 50.9, the only sector above 50; multifamily 42.9

Builder confidence, starts and design billings all weakened in the September and October 2026 readings. Under 50 on the ABI means more firms reported falling billings than rising ones. Source: NAHB; Census Bureau, New Residential Construction; AIA/Deltek.

When the building season actually turns

To see when the season turns, we took the Census Bureau’s not seasonally adjusted single-family starts for 2021 through 2025, calculated what share of each year’s starts happened in each month, then averaged the five years.

Month	US	Northeast	Midwest	South	West
January	7.1%	5.9%	4.6%	7.6%	7.5%
February	7.6%	6.3%	4.4%	8.2%	8.2%
March	8.8%	8.6%	8.0%	9.1%	8.6%
April	9.3%	9.0%	9.6%	9.1%	9.7%
May	9.3%	8.7%	11.3%	9.0%	9.3%
June	9.5%	9.6%	10.4%	9.5%	9.2%
July	8.9%	9.0%	9.7%	8.6%	9.3%
August	8.6%	9.2%	9.1%	8.5%	8.3%
September	8.2%	9.1%	8.9%	7.9%	8.2%
October	7.9%	8.0%	10.1%	7.5%	7.8%
November	7.6%	8.4%	7.6%	7.6%	7.3%
December	7.1%	8.2%	6.3%	7.4%	6.6%

Share of each year’s single-family housing starts by month, average of 2021 to 2025, not seasonally adjusted. Source: our analysis of Census Bureau New Residential Construction data.

Nationally, January and February together carry about 15% of a year’s single-family starts, and March through June carry about 37%. The South, the biggest region by volume, is fairly flat, while in the Midwest January and February average about 4.5% of the year each and May hits 11.3%. Midwest builders start about 2.6 times as many houses in May as in February.

What building products marketers should do with Q1 2027

Put January money behind people already buying

With builders discounting, the accounts that will order in the first quarter are the ones with houses already under way. Fund dealer co-op, pro desk promotions and rep visits to active builders before you fund broad awareness. If you sell through two-step distribution, ask your top dealers which builders are still starting houses and target those names.

Rewrite the pitch around the builder’s margin

A builder cutting 6% off a sale price is hunting for cost. Lead with installed cost, labor hours saved per house, fewer callbacks and cycle time. If you have a product that cuts a day off a schedule, put that number in the headline of every builder-facing ad and sell sheet in the first quarter.

Time paid media to the curve

Scale the ramp to your region, because the national curve is gentle, with January carrying 7.1% of a year’s single-family starts and June 9.5%. In the Midwest, where May starts run about 2.6 times February’s, hold January and February search and social near their floor and peak in May and June. The Northeast sits in between, rising from 5.9% in January to 9.6% in June, so ramp through March and April. In the South and West, the busiest spring months carry only about a quarter more starts than January, so keep spend closer to even and lift it modestly from March through June. Products installed at framing tend to be ordered close to a start and finishes later, so shift the curve later for interior lines.

Move spec effort toward commercial, industrial and institutional work

The ABI’s only sector above 50 is commercial and industrial, and Dodge’s Momentum Index showed institutional planning up 9.4% in September 2026 and 17.2% from a year earlier. If your products go into both houses and nonresidential buildings, put your AIA course and architect outreach behind the nonresidential side in 2027. Our guide to getting specified by architects covers the outreach, and our guide to building an AIA continuing education course covers the course itself.

Put five dates in the calendar

NAHB publishes the November 2026 index on Nov. 17, 2026, December on Dec. 16, 2026, and January 2027 on Jan. 19, 2027. Census publishes October 2026 starts on Nov. 18, 2026 and December 2026 starts on Jan. 20, 2027. If the index is still under 30 on Jan. 19, cut the first quarter awareness line and move it to the spring ramp. Our 2027 economic indicators calendar has the rest of the year’s NAHB, Census and AIA dates.