Brooks: Housing Census Data Promising but Uncertainty Still Reigns

Well, finally. When the federal government shut down for six weeks at the start of October, the Census Bureau took a holiday along with everybody else.

Hopefully Census' researchers got to go to the beach. In the housing industry, we spent four months flying blind without monthly data on starts and permits. It was only within the past couple of weeks that the Bureau finally caught up.

And actually the news isn't bad. Prior to the shutdown, annualized single-family starts had been limping along in the mid-800,000s. We didn't find out until March, but from October through January, they drifted up into the low 900,000s.

Then in March, single-family starts cracked the seven-figure mark, rising to a totally respectable 1,032,000.

Even multifamily did reasonably well. Starts slumped to the high 300,000s last fall but then hit 500,000 in January. In March, 470,000 annualized MF starts nudged the total to 1.503 million.

But don't get too comfortable. Q1 2026 GDP was also just released. The economy grew a seemingly healthy 2.0%, versus 0.5% in Q4 2025. But AI is still driving the bus and too many other sectors of the economy are weak.

As the Wall Street Journal explains, "U.S. economic growth picked up in the first quarter as businesses invested heavily in artificial intelligence, rebounding from a fourth quarter dented by a government shutdown."

Even so, adds WSJ, "The economy didn't expand as fast as economists expected, weighed down by softer consumer spending growth." The consensus among WSJ's survey of economists had been for 2.2% growth.

The wild card in all this is no secret. As reported by WSJ, the Fed is holding interest rates steady because "developments in the Middle East are contributing to a high level of uncertainty about the economic outlook."

The uncertainty is showing up everywhere, including the housing market. Analysts' opinions about multifamily activity vary, but just about everyone agrees that single-family starts will be down again this year, probably 4% or 5%.

Some dealers are already feeling the pinch. Builders FirstSource just reported a 10.1% YoY sales decline and a $47.4 million loss in Q1, says HBS Dealer, "primarily due to a lower starts environment."

On the other hand, the monthly survey of independent construction suppliers conducted by John Burns Research & Consulting found that orders declined 2% YoY in January, but jumped 7% in February and then rose another 3% in March.

Many of those independents are in the same markets as BFS, but there are too many variables to say they're capturing market share. Could be their customers are just building more houses.

In the end, it makes no difference. "We remain focused on the factors within our control," says BFS CEO Peter Jackson, and he's right. Whether the market is up or down, all you can do is be the best at what you do.