The Short Version
- Building materials rose 0.2% in August. The diesel hauling them rose 17.7% on the month, 77.8% on the year.
- Existing sales fell a third straight month to 3.98M, and supply hit 4.9 months — the highest since 2015.
- An estimated 57.9% more sellers than buyers, the widest gap in records back to 2013.
- Patios went onto 60.5% of homes started in 2025, a six-year low.
- The feature: write down the eleven exceptions, not the four steps.
By the Numbers
30-Yr Fixed
6.76%
▲ 0.05 W/W · Sept 10
Bldg Materials
+0.2%
M/M · August
Energy Inputs
+46.2%
Y/Y · August
Existing Sales
3.98M
▼ 2.0% M/M · August
This Week's Feature
What to Write Down Before You Automate Anything
Ask a superintendent how a change order gets written and you will get four steps in twenty seconds. Somebody notices the scope moved, the office prices it, the client signs, the budget updates. Ask about the last ten change orders on their own job and those four steps turn into eleven exceptions: the one approved verbally at the Thursday walkthrough, the one the trade had already started, the one nobody caught until the invoice.
The four steps are what you would hand a software vendor. The eleven exceptions are the actual process.
RAND interviewed 65 people who build AI systems for a living and asked why those projects fail. 84% of the industry practitioners blamed a leadership failure rather than a technical one — most often, the organization misunderstanding what problem it was solving. EY, from its own automation work, prices that misunderstanding in weeks of schedule.
Neither is an argument against automating. Both are arguments about what gets written down first — and nobody tells you where to stop writing, which is the expensive half of the question.
Keep reading (6 min)Voice of the Builder
The materials held. Everything that hauls them didn't.
Building materials excluding energy rose 0.2% in August and 5.1% over the year — the calmest line on your bid sheet. Energy inputs rose 6.6% on the month and 46.2% on the year; No. 2 diesel 17.7% and 77.8% (NAHB on the August PPI, Sept 10). Everything in between moved with the fuel: transportation and warehousing +14.4% Y/Y, trade services +9.0%. Total inputs rose 1.1% M/M and 7.8% Y/Y — more than five times the monthly materials move.
August's CPI says the same from the other side: energy +16.3% Y/Y, gasoline alone a third of the monthly headline increase (NAHB on BLS, Sept 11). NAHB blames "renewed tensions with Iran," and says the oil move keeps "pressure on the Fed to consider a rate hike."
What it means on your jobsite
Your proposal probably carries one line reading material, delivered. Split it: hold the material price thirty days, and quote freight, fuel and haul-off separately with a shorter expiry — that's where the 46.2% sits. Then re-check every bid where hauling is the job — excavation, concrete, site work, anything by the ton.
- Existing sales fell a third straight month, and supply is the highest since 2015. August ran 3.98M SAAR, −2.0% M/M, the lowest since July 2025. Inventory of 1.62M (+5.9% Y/Y) is 4.9 months' supply, the most since November 2015, on 31 days to sell. Median price $429,100, a 38th straight month of annual gains. NAHB on NAR
- Mortgage applications fell for a sixth consecutive month. The composite fell 3.2% M/M and 9.1% Y/Y; purchase applications 3.1% on the month, refinances 16.6% on the year. Average purchase loan: $441,000. NAHB on MBA
- Your competition is a six-person company. NAHB's 2025 Builder Member Census puts the median member at five units started, $3.7M in revenue, six employees — and 7% started no homes at all. NAHB
Bright Spots
- What you buy by the piece barely moved. The same August PPI read the other way: materials excluding energy +0.2% on the month, softwood lumber −2.5% — though lumber is still 13.0% above last year. NAHB
- Houses went up faster in 2025 than in any of the previous three years. Authorization to completion averaged 8.8 months — 1.4 waiting on the permit, 7.4 building — and the South Atlantic was the fastest division at 7.6. NAHB on Census
- Core inflation cooled and the first-time buyer came back. Core CPI ran +2.4% against 2.5% in July, shelter +3.0% against 3.2%, and first-time buyers were 30% of August's existing-home sales, up from 29% in July and 28% a year ago. NAHB
Then again: The faster house is landing in a slower sale. 31.5% of for-sale homes completed in 2025 sold after they were finished, up from 27.0% — NAHB's summary is that "builders faced a weaker sales environment in 2025." You control the build time. You carry the finished spec. NAHB
Hot Markets
| Metro | Sellers vs. buyers (− = fewer sellers) | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Nassau County, NY | −27.6% | Tightest of the 49 metros |
| Newark, NJ | −20.7% | All five seller's markets sit where Redfin says construction "has been constrained for years" |
| Montgomery County, PA | −20.3% | Seller's markets priced +5.5% Y/Y; buyer's markets +1.6% |
Redfin counts sellers against buyers across the 49 largest metros: five are seller's markets, 36 are buyer's markets. Nationally, an estimated 1,534,918 sellers to 972,300 buyers in August — 57.9% more sellers, the widest gap in records back to 2013. Estimated, seasonally adjusted, subject to revision. Redfin
Cooling: Nashville, at 139.3% more sellers than buyers, ahead of Miami 138.3% and Houston 130.9%. Redfin credits "some of the most active homebuilding pipelines in the country" — that glut was built, not suffered. Underwrite a Sun Belt spec on the buyer's-market trend of 1.6%, not the 5.5% the constrained metros print.
Design Trends · New Construction
Patios went onto 60.5% of the homes started in 2025 — under 61% for the first time since 2019.
NAHB's tabulation of the Census Survey of Construction — the same annual survey issue 03 used for exterior walls, published Sept 3, covering homes started in 2025 — has the share down from 61.8% in 2024, and splits hard by region: West South Central 77% against New England's 26%, up from 14%. The 2026 Builder Practices Survey (Home Innovation Research Labs, homes built in 2025) puts the average new patio near 320 sq ft and poured concrete above 60% of patio square footage in every division but New England, where pavers and natural stone each beat it.
The spec change
The two extremes are the instruction. In the West South Central three quarters of new homes get a patio, averaging under 200 sq ft — table stakes there, so size is the differentiator and slab is the cheapest square footage on your plan set. In New England the share nearly doubled off a low base and concrete is not the default: put pavers or stone in the base spec, not the upgrade sheet.
AI on the Jobsite
Don't ask it to write the listing. Ask it what your house has that theirs doesn't.
With 36 of 49 metros now buyer's markets, Redfin's Asad Khan tells sellers to "work harder to stand out" (Redfin), and 31.5% of for-sale homes finished in 2025 sold after completion — you are marketing a standing house, not a plan (NAHB). The median NAHB builder has six employees: no marketing department to hand this to.
Copy this prompt
Attached: the spec and selection record for [ADDRESS] — scope, finishes, systems, warranty — plus the listing text for the [N] competing homes within [X] miles and [Y]% of my price. Return three lists. (1) Every feature my house has that a named competitor does not, citing the line in my record. (2) Every feature a competitor has that mine does not. (3) The three differences a buyer could see standing in the house for one minute. Then one paragraph under 100 words a buyer's agent could repeat from memory. Use only the attached documents; where a claim isn't in my record, write "not in the record" rather than filling it in. No ad copy, headlines or taglines.
Time saved: Nothing published measures the hours this saves, so measure the outcome instead — the median existing home sold in 31 days in August. That's the clock your spec beats or doesn't.
JobTread Tip of the Week
Get every lead into one customer record before you ask a model to compare anything
The prompt above needs a customer record that isn't a phone and three spreadsheets. JobTread's CRM training covers building one:
- Create the customer records — contacts and locations together, so a repeat client with three addresses stops being three customers.
- Import your existing leads rather than retyping them.
- Collect customer data through a web form, so the next lead arrives with its own fields already filled in.
- Tailor it with custom fields and views for what you actually sort on, then hand the client the Customer Account dashboard and external portal for document sharing.
The Punch List
- Producer and Consumer Price Indexes, August — NAHB on BLS, Sept 10–11
- Existing Home Sales, August — NAHB on NAR, Sept 10
- Single-Family Time to Build, 2025 — NAHB on Census, Sept 8
- Buyers vs. Sellers, August — Redfin, Sept 10
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey — Freddie Mac, 6.76% Sept 10
- New Residential Construction — Census/HUD. July print current; August due mid-September
Quitting Time
Why did the roofer quit?
He was completely over it.