The Short Version
- The 30-year hit 7.03%, its first print above 7% since January 2025 in Freddie Mac's own history. The 10-year's 5.18% is its highest since July 2007.
- New home sales rose 6.4% to 684,000, a gain Census can't tell from zero (±19.5%).
- KB Home: conditions "weakening since our June earnings report." Orders fell 12%.
- Four-bedroom homes fell to 31.7% of 2025 starts, the lowest since 2010.
- The feature: Census says a sales trend takes four months. Check the margin before you spend on one.
By the Numbers
30-Yr Fixed
7.03%
▲ 0.08 W/W · Sept 24
New Home Sales
684,000
▲ 6.4% (±19.5%) · August
10-Yr Treasury
5.18%
▲ 0.39 since Sept 1 · Sept 24
This Week's Feature
One Month Is Not a Trend: Read the Margin Before You Act
On 24 September, Census reported new home sales up 6.4% in August, to a seasonally adjusted 684,000 a year. Beside the 6.4% it printed ±19.5% and an asterisk. The footnote: "The 90 percent confidence interval includes zero. In such cases, there is insufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero" (Census release).
A month earlier, July's first print of 607,000 was "the slowest since January of this year," per NAHB on 25 August. July now stands at 643,000. A builder who cut a crew on that headline cut it on a number since revised away.
The release's explanatory notes add an instruction: "It takes 4 months to establish a trend for new houses sold." The agency that produces the number is telling you how little one month proves.
None of this is peculiar to houses. A fabricator's orders, a service company's calls and a remodeler's signed contracts are exact counts, yet one signature landing on the 1st instead of the 31st moves them. Before you hire, cut a price, buy a lot or order ahead on one month, there is a check that takes an afternoon — and some numbers pass it.
Keep reading (6 min)Voice of the Builder
The 30-year crossed 7%, and the one national builder to report says it got worse after June.
Freddie Mac put the 30-year at 7.03% on Sept 24, from 6.95% a week earlier (PMMS). Freddie's own weekly history puts the last print that high at 7.04% on January 16, 2025. The 10-year Treasury closed at 5.18% the same day (Treasury), its highest since July 2007, per MPA.
Reporting Sept 22, KB Home Executive Chairman Jeffrey Mezger described "a housing market that continues to be challenging, with conditions weakening since our June earnings report." His next sentence opens: "Higher mortgage interest rates have further pressured affordability…" Net orders fell 12%, and cancellations rose to 18% from 17% (KB Home).
What it means on your jobsite
Call every buyer under contract who hasn't locked, this week rather than at closing, and rerun their payment at 7.03%. One sized at February's 5.98% is 105 basis points light. Same call for any remodel client whose job rides on a loan.
- Remodelers' nonlabor costs rose 6.6% in a year. NAHB's new Remodeling Input Price Index ran +6.6% Y/Y in Q2, from 3.9% in Q1. NAHB notes the index "does not estimate the total cost of a remodeling project or the price a remodeler should charge a customer." NAHB, Sept 23
- Architects' billings are still shrinking. The ABI read 47.2 in August (under 50 means decline). The Northeast's 40.7 is its "lowest level since 2020," and firms expecting declines rose to 29% from 21%. MCD on AIA/Deltek, Sept 24
- Lumber futures hit a nine-month low. Wholesale 2x4s are up 14%. Futures fell to around $535/mbf, "their lowest level in nine months," per data vendor Trading Economics, Sept 24. Western SPF 2x4 ran US$480/mbf the week ending Sept 11, up 14% on the year (Madison's). Price off the yard's quote.
Bright Spots
- Fewer finished homes are sitting unsold. Census estimated 112,000 completed new homes for sale at the end of August, against 123,000 a year earlier. Not seasonally adjusted, no margin printed: not a tested change. Census
- Construction added 120,000 jobs over the year. Employment was up 1.5% on August 2025; Louisiana led by percentage at +12.7%, and Ohio added the most, 17,800. NAHB on BLS, Sept 18
- KB Home's backlog rose for the first time in four years. 4,398 homes sold and not yet delivered, up 2%, worth $2.05B, up 3%. KB Home
Then again: The finished homes left over are sitting longer. The median time for sale since completion was 3.2 months in August, from 2.4 a year earlier, and 3.0 or more all year, in the same Census table. If you carry a finished spec, set its price-review date before it reaches that 3.2-month median. Census
Hot Markets
| Metro | SF permits, Jan–Aug vs. 2025 | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma City, OK | +9.2% | 4,500 → 4,916; largest % gain of the 36 |
| Raleigh–Cary, NC | +5.4% | 8,177 → 8,621; largest unit gain, +444 |
| Boise City, ID | +4.9% | 5,556 → 5,831; the only western metro in the top six |
Single-family units permitted, from Census's metro permit files posted Sept 24, against the same months of 2025 as published: eight months, not one. The screen is ours, the 36 metros with 4,000+ units in January–August 2025, and so is every percentage. All metros: −2.8%.
Cooling: Charlotte–Concord–Gastonia, NC-SC, 11,957 → 8,846, −26.0%, the largest unit decline of the 36, in the same state as Raleigh. A statewide figure averages the two into something neither metro looks like: staff and bid each metro off its own permits.
Design Trends · New Construction
Four-bedroom homes fell to 31.7% of 2025 starts, the lowest share since 2010, while five or more bedrooms rose to 10.3%.
NAHB's tabulations of the Census Survey of Construction, the same annual survey issues 03 and 05 used, published Sept 22 and Sept 23 for homes started in 2025. The four-bedroom share fell from 32.4%, a fourth straight annual decline. One bathroom or less rose to 4.9%, the highest since 2012. By division, four or more bedrooms ran 49.3% of starts in the West South Central against 28.1% in New England and the East North Central; at least one half-bath, 66.3% in New England against 34.0% in the East South Central.
The spec change
Stop treating the fourth bedroom as automatic; its share has fallen four years running. Draw it as a flex room that can be finished as a bedroom, and price it as the option. Let your division set the base plan: in the West South Central, where nearly half of starts have four or more bedrooms, keep it; in New England, put the half-bath in the base spec and the fourth bedroom on the upgrade sheet.
AI on the Jobsite
Write tomorrow's toolbox talk from tomorrow's task, in your crew's language
Fall protection's general requirements were OSHA's most-cited standard for a 16th consecutive fiscal year, and its training rule logged 1,273 violations (preliminary FY2026 list, per Safety+Health, Sept 15). OSHA's 2010 training policy, still current, requires instruction in "a language and vocabulary that the employees can understand." In 2025, 35.4% of people employed in construction were Hispanic or Latino (BLS). That is ethnicity, not language, so ask your own crew.
Copy this prompt
Tomorrow on [JOB]: [schedule line]. The task: what, where, at what height, with what equipment. Crew: [N]; languages they take instructions in: [LANGUAGES]. Write a five-minute toolbox talk for the foreman to say out loud, in plain spoken words, about the one way this task could put someone on the ground. Not a handout. Add three questions the foreman asks, answerable only by someone who listened, with answers, and a closing line asking the crew what the talk missed. Give it all in English and [LANGUAGES], side by side, then a sign-in sheet: name, date, task, trainer's signature, questions raised. Flag any safety term whose translation you are unsure of, for a bilingual lead to check. Do not claim this meets an OSHA training requirement: it is a toolbox talk, not the training program.
Time saved: Nothing published measures the hours saved, so keep the record instead: 1926.503(b)(1) wants fall protection training recorded with who, when and who trained them. The sheet builds that habit; it does not replace the training.
JobTread Tip of the Week
Turn the crew's narrated walkthrough into the Daily Log
Disclosure first: ReportAmigo is a paid third-party partner, not a JobTread feature, free to start and then $59/mo, per its own site. JobTread's Sept 24 partner video sets it up:
- Add your crew with one shared link; no app needed.
- Set the schedule: who receives requests, on which days and times.
- Match each ReportAmigo project to its JobTread job.
- Get the Daily Log. The crew opens the text, records a narrated walkthrough and photos; ReportAmigo turns the narration into a Daily Log and saves the media to ReportAmigo and JobTread, not a camera roll.
ReportAmigo makes a daily log, not a toolbox-talk sign-in sheet.
The Punch List
- New Residential Sales, August — Census/HUD, Sept 24; September's report Oct 27
- KB Home Q3 2026 results — KB Home, Sept 22
- Bedrooms and bathrooms in 2025 starts — NAHB on Census, Sept 22–23
- OSHA FY2026 preliminary Top 10 — Safety+Health, Sept 15
Quitting Time
Why is a level so insufferable?
In thirty years it has never once admitted it was off.