Home Builder Confidence Dip Links to Politics, TRI Pointe Homes CEO Tells CNBC

Events like Brexit contributed to a decline in home sales and a slip in home builders' confidence in the housing market, TRI Pointe Homes CEO Doug Bauer told CNBC today.
By Lindsay Rittenhouse ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Home sales "tailed off" a bit in June due to global and regional events, contributing to the below-expected home builder confidence report in the National Association of HomeBuilders'(NAHB) monthly sentiment index, TRI Pointe Homes CEO Doug Bauer said on CNBC's "Power Lunch" Monday.

"Home buying does have a certain amount of confidence factor to it so what happened in Britain (the Brexit vote), the political uncertainty of going through this election cycle, it was a pretty warm late June in a number of the southwestern markets," Bauer stated, explaining the likely impacts that negatively affected home sales.

This morning, the NAHB reported in its monthly index that builder confidence in the single family housing market fell one point to 59, lower than the Wall Street estimate of 60 points.

The NAHB index also showed current sales decreased one point to 53, buyer traffic dipped one point to 45 and sales expectations over the next six months declined 3 points to 66.

"Builders are benefiting from the lack of supply of existing homes for sale but newly built homes, well guess what? They're pricier than counterparts. Even low mortgage rates aren't making up for that premium," CNBC's Diana Olick noted.

And these high housing prices are rising "far faster" than homeowners' incomes, Olick commented.

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