The Short Version
- Builder confidence fell to 29, the lowest since June 2012; 43% of builders cut prices (NAHB).
- Single-family permits fell to an 845,000 annual rate, the lowest since March 2023 (Census data; our check).
- The 30-year eased 8 basis points to 7.32%, its first weekly drop since August (our check).
- From Ohio to Wisconsin, slabs passed basements: 43.0% of homes started there in 2025 had one, from 50.3%.
- The feature: price the warranty callback before you sell the job.
By the Numbers
30-Yr Fixed
7.32%
▼ 0.08 W/W · Oct 22
NAHB HMI
29
▼ 3 M/M · Oct 19 print
SF Starts
859,000
▼ 4.6% M/M (±10.0%) · Sept
SF Permits
845,000
▼ 4.0% M/M · Sept
This Week's Feature
Price the Warranty Callback Before You Sell the Job
M/I Homes, a public builder, sets money aside for warranty work on every house it delivers. Over the first nine months of 2026 that came to about $2,625 a home, close to the $2,675 of a year earlier (our arithmetic from its quarterly filing, Oct 23). The warranty claims it paid over the same months came to $33.0 million, against $18.7 million a year before: up 77%.
M/I can carry that: it books a reserve at every closing, pays claims out of it, and tops it up when they outrun the estimate. A business that books nothing pays the same bill months after the final invoice, out of whatever job is running that week.
A callback is a cost of a job you already sold. Price it in the estimate, and track which causes and which subs keep sending a crew back. Then check the law: federal warranty law reaches a remodel's materials but not a new home's or a substantial addition's, and a repair shop's warranty can land on either side, depending on whether it covers the parts.
Keep reading (8 min)Voice of the Builder
Builder confidence fell to its lowest since June 2012, and orders fell at three national builders.
NAHB's index fell three points to 29 in October, "the lowest since June 2012," per its Oct 19 release, and its own history table agrees. 43% of builders cut prices, "the highest share during the 2020-2026 period"; the average cut held at 6% for a seventh month, and 65% used incentives.
Orders fell at all three national builders that reported Oct 21–22. PulteGroup's fell 6%, the rise in rates having "pushed even more consumers to the sidelines" (Pulte, Oct 22). NVR's fell 7%, and its cancellation rate rose to 21% from 19% (NVR, Oct 22). M/I Homes' fell 2%, amid "higher mortgage interest rates, weaker demand and growing economic uncertainty" (M/I, Oct 21).
What it means on your jobsite
Before the next spec start, rerun its pro forma at 6% under today's list, the average cut, with the incentive you'd actually offer priced as its own line. What's left is the margin you're really building for.
- Contracts on existing homes fell 11.3% on the year. NAR's pending-sales index fell 7.3% from August, with declines in all four regions, the West's steepest at 15.0% on the year. NAR, Oct 20
- Buying Beazer makes Dream Finders sixth-largest, it says. The all-cash deal closed at an enterprise value of about $2.2 billion; the ranking is by 2025 revenue among U.S.-headquartered builders. Next: Dream Finders' "floor plans that better match what today's buyers can afford," in Beazer's communities. Dream Finders, Oct 20
- A quarter of remodelers started an ADU. In NAHB's Q3 survey, 24% had started one as an addition over the past year and 23% had converted space; 62% of ADU projects cost $150,000 or more, against 28% in Q1 2019, while remodelers' input costs rose over 51% in that time. No sample size given. NAHB, Oct 23
Bright Spots
- The Midwest is holding. It is the only region with single-family permits up this year, +1.2% through September (Census, Oct 20), and its builders' three-month HMI average, 40, is the highest of the four regions, though it fell three points (NAHB).
- Backlogs grew at two big builders. PulteGroup's backlog rose 4% to 10,298 homes and NVR's 10% to 10,121 (Pulte; NVR, Oct 22).
- Rates moved this time. Last week's bright spot was a pause. On Oct 22 the 10-year fell 17 basis points, to 4.96%, its largest one-day drop since Aug 2, 2024 (Treasury, our check), after Freddie Mac's survey had closed with the 30-year's largest weekly decline since April (history, our check).
Then again: A backlog is work already sold, and the next sales look thin. NAHB's gauge of buyer traffic fell to 18, "its lowest level since April 2012, excluding the pandemic's onset in April 2020" (NAHB, Oct 19). Book trades for the backlog you have; price the next start for the traffic you're seeing.
Hot Markets
| Metro | Redfin prices, Sept | Realtor.com clock, Oct |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia | +1.9% M/M, top of 50; +7.6% Y/Y | 2 o'clock: left seller's territory |
| Pittsburgh | +1.3% M/M; +6.6% Y/Y | 3 o'clock: balanced, loosening |
| Columbus | +0.3% M/M; +5.3% Y/Y | 1 o'clock: seller's, among four nearest leaving |
Census's September metro permits land Oct 27; until then, two resale sources. Redfin's price index, Oct 20, is repeat sales of single-family homes in the 50 biggest metros, three months to Sept 30. Realtor.com's Market Clock, Oct 19, places 99 metros between seller's and buyer's market from listings, sale records and contract activity. Neither measures builder activity.
Cooling: San Antonio's prices fell 2.1% on the year, the most of Redfin's 50, and Realtor.com's clock has it at 4 o'clock, a candidate "for tipping from balanced into outright buyer's markets." A spec there now competes with resales getting cheaper; price it against this month's comps.
Design Trends · New Construction
Slabs passed basements in the East North Central: 43.0% of 2025's new homes started there had one, from 50.3% a year earlier.
In the Census division that includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, "slabs surpassed basements as the most common foundation type in 2025," per NAHB's Oct 23 read of the Census Survey of Construction for homes started that year. Slabs took "just over half." Full or partial basements fell to 43.0%, from 50.3% in its 2024 read (Aug 8, 2025): 7.3 points, our arithmetic across the two posts.
The spec change
If you build basement plans in those five states, price a slab version of each before a buyer asks, with your excavator's and concrete sub's numbers. NAHB credits the slab's "cost advantages" but neither measures nor prices them, so the saving has to come from your own bids, net of the frost footing, mechanical room and storage the plan then needs.
AI on the Jobsite
Make the model quote the install conditions, with page numbers
M/I Homes booked $7.2 million in nine months for unusual warranty claims in two Florida communities, "primarily due to attic ventilation issues" (10-Q, Oct 23). The filing doesn't say an instruction was skipped; it shows what a ventilation problem can cost. This prompt pulls the details your crew can't miss out of the manufacturer's fine print, each quoted with its page. Models misread scans and tables, so check two quotes against the PDF before the list goes to your lead. Attaching a selection sheet to name the products? Delete the client's name, address and phone from pasted text, or ink them out on paper and attach a photo; a box drawn over a PDF leaves the text readable.
Copy this prompt
Attached: the installation instructions and the warranty for [product and model number]. Read only these documents. List every condition my installer has to meet: clearances, gaps, fasteners, substrate, ventilation, weather or acclimation, and who is allowed to install it. Then list every condition that voids or limits the warranty. For each one, give the page number and quote the sentence exactly. Don't paraphrase, and don't add anything that isn't in these documents. If my crew would need to know something the documents don't say, list it as a question under "Not stated," and don't answer it. Format it as a one-page checklist my lead can tick on site.
Time saved: Nothing published measures it. Count instead: callbacks on your next five jobs traced to a condition on the list.
JobTread Tip of the Week
Save the product you checked as a catalog item
Once a product's install list checks out, save that exact product and model as a catalog item, so the next estimate copies the one you vetted rather than a near-match. That use is ours. JobTread's description says the Catalog "serves as a centralized place to store repeating costs and standardized cost items," and "Items and groups saved to the catalog may be copied to a job budget for quicker estimation." It lists no steps, so we've written none; the four steps issue 01 ran with this video were ours. It doesn't say whether an item can hold notes or files.
The Punch List
- Builder Sentiment Falls on Rising Rates — NAHB, Oct 19
- New Residential Construction, September — Census, Oct 20
- Next prints: new home sales and metro permits Oct 27 (Census); FOMC Oct 27–28; HMI Nov 17 (NAHB); single-family starts Nov 18 (Census)
Quitting Time
Why did the framer get promoted?
They were outstanding in their field. Then someone poured the slab on it.