Builder Trends Reflect Continued Buyer Hesitation Amid Spring Selling Season
May 19, 2026
As the housing market entered the heart of the spring selling season, HomeSphere/BTIG State of the Industry builder survey results paint a cautious picture for new home sales activity. While underlying buyer interest remains present, elevated mortgage rates, affordability concerns, and broader economic uncertainty continued to impact conversion rates and overall builder confidence.
Builders reported another challenging month in April, with just 24% indicating higher year-over-year sales activity, a noticeable decline from 34% in March. Expectations also missed the mark, as more than one-third of respondents said sales performed worse than anticipated. The softer sales environment suggests many prospective buyers remain hesitant to commit despite seasonal demand patterns that typically strengthen during the spring months.
While sales weakened, buyer traffic trends appeared somewhat more stable. Twenty-nine percent of builders reported higher year-over-year traffic in April, only slightly below March levels. At the same time, the percentage of builders reporting lower traffic improved from 35% in March to 29% in April. As highlighted in the report, the data points to an important trend: consumers are still actively shopping and exploring the market, but many are delaying purchasing decisions due to affordability pressures and uncertainty surrounding interest rates.
To help stimulate demand, builders increasingly turned to incentives and pricing adjustments in April. Twenty-four percent of builders reported lowering some, most, or all base prices, and 28% increased the use of incentives, up from 24% in March.
These measures highlight the competitive environment builders are navigating as they work to convert traffic into signed contracts.
Survey commentary remained conservative overall, with many builders citing mortgage rates and macroeconomic concerns as key obstacles impacting buyer confidence. Although traffic levels suggest continued consumer interest in homeownership, affordability constraints continue to create friction in the sales process. Until borrowing costs improve or inventory conditions become more favorable, builders may continue facing challenges converting shoppers into buyers.
Interestingly, public homebuilders have recently communicated a more optimistic outlook than reflected in these survey results. In addition, recent Census data for New Home Sales and Housing Starts showed signs of reacceleration during March and April. This divergence could indicate that larger public builders, often equipped with stronger balance sheets, national incentives, and mortgage buydown programs, are outperforming smaller and private builders in the current market environment.
As the market moves deeper into the spring and summer selling season, the industry will continue watching affordability trends, mortgage rate movement, and consumer confidence closely. For now, April’s data reinforces a market that still contains buyer interest, but one where economic pressures continue to delay purchasing decisions and force builders to compete aggressively for every sale.
The latest NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (released May 18, 2026) increased a few points to 37.
Highlights from the latest State of the Industry Report
Sales & traffic. Sales looked weak again in April after the March decline. 32% of builders reported lower sales year-over-year vs. 35% in March, while 24% of respondents reported higher year-over-year sales growth, down from 34% in March. Traffic trends were more stable, with 29% of builders reporting higher year-over-year traffic vs. 33% in March and 30% in April 2025, while 29% reported lower traffic vs. 35% in the previous month and 34% last April, resulting in a higher-minus-lower spread of 0, up from -2 last month and above -4 in April 2025.
Sales & traffic relative to expectations. Sales relative to expectations deteriorated further in April. 27% of respondents saw sales as better than expected (26% in March) and 35% saw sales as worse (26% in March), resulting in a better-minus worse spread of -8, down from 0 in March and +11 in February. 28% of builders saw better-than-expected traffic vs. 24% in March, and 26% saw it as worse vs. 21% in March, producing a better-minus-worse spread of +2 vs. +3 in March.
Base Pricing: The percentage of builders raising some, most or all base prices increased to 20% from 17% in March. The combined percentage of builders lowering some, most, or all base prices increased to 24% vs. 23% in March.
Incentives. 28% of survey respondents reported increasing some, most, or all incentives in April, up from 24% in March. 9% reported decreasing incentives and 50% left incentives unchanged vs. 59% in March.
Builder commentary. The tone from builders in April remained subdued and the comments noted higher interest rates, geopolitical uncertainty, rising fuel and material costs, and broader economic concerns as issues. Bright spots were noted, but overall the commentary suggests the spring selling season continues to struggle to gain traction while input cost pressure may be materializing.
HomeSphere/BTIG State of the Industry Report
HomeSphere partners with the global investment bank BTIG to create a monthly report to provide our builders and manufacturers with exclusive and timely insights about the market.
To compile the report, we survey HomeSphere’s 2,700+ regional and local home builders about sales, traffic, pricing, labor costs and other key industry metrics.
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