Metro Detroit home builders face slowdown amid rising interest rates, material costs ( Detroit News)

After returning to Metro Detroit from Washington State last year, Ryan Kowalski began to search for a home to buy.

After two months of looking, Kowalski went another route — he chose to build a condo in Hazel Park with an open floor plan and bedrooms with attached bathrooms.

“I was very happy to find this condo because it just checked a lot of the boxes, if not all of them,” he said.

Kowalski, 34, is among Metro Detroiters building homes in a housing market where supply remains tight and prices remain high. His 1,334-square-foot, two-bedroom condo is expected to be complete this summer after nearly a year of construction.

Darian Neubecker, chief operating officer of Robertson Brothers Homes, said he’s noticed the impact in sales from rising interest rates. The Bloomfield Hills-based company builds 150-200 homes a year and has new residential projects underway in cities including Bloomfield Hills, Hazel Park and Detroit.

“You know, we have slowed in the last couple of months, and interest rates have not helped,” he said. “But it’s still a solid market. We're still moving forward, buying additional land and bringing on new projects. Certainly, the last couple of months have been slower with interest rates rising. And I think COVID maybe pulled forward some of the demand.”

Neubecker said business has been strong for the past decade, even amid the pandemic as people spending more time at home wanted to improve their living spaces.

“There was an increased amount of demand from homebuyers, which led into some supply-chain challenges, which we've been all working through as an industry for the last couple of years,” he said.

Read the Full article here: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2022/05/27/michigan-home-builders-face-slowdown-heres-why/9896189002/