Single-family construction fell in six of seven U.S. geographic categories in the second quarter while multifamily building expanded in six of seven, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ Home Building Geography Index released Tuesday β a split that is steadily pushing new houses toward smaller markets and new apartments back toward big cities.
The index, which NAHB builds from U.S. Census Bureau data, sorts every U.S. county into seven types by population density and metro status, from large metro core counties through suburbs, exurbs, small metro areas and rural counties. It is one of the few national measures that shows not just how much is being built, but where.
Single-family declines ease but stay broad
Large metro core counties β the dense central counties of the biggest metropolitan areas β recorded the steepest single-family decline at 13.9%, a fifth consecutive quarterly drop. That was an improvement from the 15.8% decline logged in the first quarter, and NAHB economist Catherine Koh wrote that the downturn “eased as these geographies contracted at a slower pace from the previous quarter.”
Outlying counties in small metro areas were the only category to return to growth, rising a modest 0.9% after four straight quarterly declines.
The shares tell a clearer story than the growth rates. Large metro core counties lost 1.3 percentage points of single-family market share from a year earlier, falling to 14.6% β what NAHB called another new low. Small metro outlying counties gained the most, adding 0.8 percentage point to reach 10.9%.
Small metro core counties remained the largest single-family market at 29.4% of construction, followed by large metro suburban counties at 24.0%.
Multifamily moves the other way
Apartment construction ran in the opposite direction. Large metro core counties grew 11.6%, a third consecutive quarter of growth and the strongest of any geography, though the pace slowed from the first quarter. Large metro suburban counties rose 7.9%, also decelerating.
Large metro outlying counties were the sole multifamily category to contract, falling 15.9%. Non-metro and micropolitan counties posted the clearest acceleration at 10.3% growth, but they account for just 1.2% of multifamily construction β a large percentage move on a very small base.
Multifamily market share kept concentrating in the biggest metros. Large metro core counties gained 1.6 percentage points year over year to 35.4% and large metro suburban counties added 0.5 point to 27.3%, so that the two together accounted for 62.7% of all multifamily construction.
Consistent with the permit and starts data
The geographic split matches what national counts have shown all year. RealtyWire reported in August that single-family permits fell 4.2% in the first half of 2026 while multifamily permits rose 4.5%, and that single-family starts plunged in July even as permits climbed. NAHB has separately documented weakness in specific single-family products, including a 12% four-quarter decline in townhouse starts.
Labor data released the same day points in a similar direction. In a separate post, NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz wrote that construction job openings rose to 326,000 in July from 298,000 in June, above the 305,000 recorded a year earlier, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The construction job openings rate reached 3.8%, up from 3.6% a year ago, and the hires rate climbed to 4.4% from 3.8%. Layoffs were flat at 1.9%.
Dietz attributed the openings partly to non-residential strength β he cited data center construction up 46% year over year β and partly to immigration enforcement affecting worker availability. Those are his stated explanations, not independently verified causes.
What it means
Verified: single-family construction is contracting almost everywhere but contracting less than it was, and its center of gravity continues to move away from dense metro cores toward smaller and less densely populated markets. Multifamily is doing the reverse, concentrating in large metro cores and suburbs.
Attributed: NAHB frames the single-family shift as a continuing geographic reallocation and the multifamily pattern as increasing concentration in large metropolitan areas.
RealtyWire analysis: the two trends are not necessarily contradictory. Single-family builders follow land cost and lot supply, which favor the periphery, while apartment developers follow rental demand and density allowances, which favor cores. The narrowing single-family declines are the more tentative signal β one quarter of slower contraction in a five-quarter downturn is not a turn, and NAHB does not describe it as one.
What to watch: whether small metro outlying counties hold their return to growth in the third quarter, whether large metro core single-family share falls below 14.5%, and whether multifamily growth in large metro cores keeps decelerating. NAHB publishes the underlying data and an interactive map at nahb.org/hbgi, and more housing market indicators land later this week.
