Single-Family Construction Is Falling Almost Everywhere. Apartments Are the Exception.

Kingston, Jamaica, 2 September 2026

Single-family home construction in the United States declined in nearly every geographic category in the second quarter of 2026, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ Home Building Geography Index, while multifamily construction expanded in six of seven categories. The divergence is striking and instructive. In a market with a national housing deficit estimated at 4.7 million units, the type of housing most families aspire to own, a single-family home, is being built less frequently in almost every corner of the country. The type of housing that packages families into shared structures is growing, concentrated in the densest urban areas, driven by investors and institutions rather than individual buyer demand.

The Geographic Breakdown

The steepest decline in single-family construction occurred in Large Metro Core counties, those with populations above one million in the heart of major metropolitan areas, where starts fell 13.9 per cent year-on-year. That was, however, an improvement from the 15.8 per cent decline recorded in the first quarter, suggesting that the rate of deterioration may be slowing even if conditions themselves have not improved. The only geographic category to record a gain in single-family construction was non-metro and micro counties, the smallest and most rural markets, which posted a 2.4 per cent increase. That figure represents a tiny share of overall construction activity, roughly 1.2 per cent of total multifamily volume, and cannot offset the declines elsewhere.

Multifamily construction told a different story. Large Metro Core counties recorded an 11.6 per cent increase, and Large Metro Suburban counties a 7.9 per cent gain. Non-Metro and Micro counties posted 10.3 per cent growth in the multifamily category, the strongest rate of any geographic tier, though again from a very small base. Investors and developers building apartment complexes are responding to the same affordability conditions that are suppressing single-family demand. When buyers cannot afford to purchase, they rent. When rental demand is strong, the economics of building apartments work better than the economics of building homes for sale. The NAHB data captures that logic playing out across the country’s geography.

What This Means for the Housing Supply Debate

The growth of multifamily construction does not close the gap created by the decline in single-family building. These are not substitute products in any meaningful sense for a family that wants to own a home and build equity over time. An apartment available to rent in a large metro core does not address the aspiration of a couple in a suburban or rural area who want to buy a house. The geographic mismatch compounds the product mismatch. Multifamily is growing where density already exists. Single-family is declining where it is most needed, in the mid-sized and smaller markets where families are looking to put down roots and where the economics of building should, in theory, be more favourable. The combination of rate pressure, material cost uncertainty, and labour shortage has overridden that theory in practice.

The Jamaica Context

Jamaica’s construction market is experiencing its own version of this structural tension. The NHT and private developers are building, primarily in higher-density formats in St Catherine, St Andrew, and St James, where land economics and infrastructure availability support multi-unit schemes. Standalone homes on individual lots, the housing type that most Jamaican families historically aspired to and that the island’s rural and semi-rural landscape was built around, are becoming harder to deliver at accessible price points. Land in the peri-urban areas surrounding Kingston and the major parish capitals has appreciated significantly. Construction costs have risen. The economics of delivering a detached single-family home at a price that a median-income Jamaican family can service through an NHT mortgage are tighter than they were five years ago. The NAHB’s second-quarter data is, in that sense, a global signal rather than an American one. The market forces pulling construction toward apartments and away from houses are not unique to the United States. They are operating on every island and every market where land is finite, costs are rising, and the families who need homes most are those whose budgets are least able to absorb the price of building them.

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