In the second quarter of 2026, there was a disparity in the trends of home building across different regions.
Single-family construction experienced a decline in nearly all geographic categories, as indicated by the Home Building Geography Index (HBGI).
However, the contraction in the majority of markets subsided since the first quarter.
Multifamily construction expanded in six of the seven categories, with a growing concentration of activity in suburban counties and large metro cores.
Single-Family
In the second quarter, single-family construction experienced a decline in six of the seven geographic categories.
Nevertheless, the contraction of these geographies in the second quarter of the year was less severe than in the previous quarter, which alleviated the downturn in single-family construction.
The fifth consecutive quarter of decline was exemplified by the steepest decline, which was 13.9% in large metro core counties.
This was an improvement from the 15.8% decline observed in the first quarter.
Following four consecutive quarterly declines, the sole market to experience growth was outlying counties in small metro areas, which increased by a modest 0.9%.
The geographic composition of single-family construction continued to transition toward markets that were less densely populated and smaller in size.
Compared to the previous year, the largest market share decline was experienced by large metro core counties, which fell by 1.3 percentage points to a new low of 14.6%.
In contrast, minor metro outlying counties experienced the greatest increase, rising by 0.8 percentage points to 10.9%.
The largest single-family market was still small metro core counties, which accounted for 29.4% of construction.
Large metro suburban counties followed at 24.0%.
Multifamily
All markets, with the exception of significant metro outlying counties, experienced an increase in multifamily construction.
The large metro core counties experienced an 11.6% increase, which represents three-quarters of consecutive growth.
The market has experienced the most robust development among all geographies, despite a decrease in the rate of growth compared to the previous quarter.
Although growth has slowed from the previous quarter, large metro suburban counties also followed a similar pattern, posting a 7.9% increase.
In contrast, the multifamily sector experienced a contraction in the only market, large metro outlying counties, which experienced a 15.9% decline.
The most prominent acceleration was observed in non-metro/micro counties, where growth increased to 10.3%, despite the fact that these regions accounted for only 1.2% of multifamily construction.
The multifamily market share continued to migrate toward large metropolitan areas.
Large metro core counties increased by 1.6 percentage points from the previous year to reach 35.4%, while large metro suburban counties increased by 0.5 percentage points to reach 27.3%..
Collectively, these markets constituted 62.7% of multifamily construction.
The interactive HBGI map and the second quarter of 2026 HBGI data are available at https://nahb.org/hbgi.
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