According to the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) Home Building Geography Index (HBGI), single-family construction declined across nearly all major metros in Q2 2026.
The data reported that densely populated metro counties continued their fifth quarter of decline and fell 13.9%. However, the decline was not as steep compared to the previous quarter’s 15.8%.
The smaller markets, noted as outlying counties in small metro areas and the microcounty, saw improvements. The outlying counties in small metro areas grew for the first time in a year, posting a reasonable 0.9% increase.
“The geographic composition of single-family construction continued to shift toward smaller and less densely populated markets,” said Catherine Koh, an economist at NAHB. “Large metro core counties experienced the largest market share decline, falling 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier to reach another new low point at 14.6%. By contrast, small metro outlying counties posted the largest gain, increasing 0.8 percentage point to 10.9%.”
