Surging jobsite raids put 370,000 new home completions at risk
America’s homebuilders entered the fall with 256,000 newly constructed homes still under construction for sale and another 114,000 permitted or otherwise classified as not yet started.
Together, those 370,000 homes represent an enormous amount of work builders still have to complete, along with intensifying business risk tied to their ability to do so.
The figures come from the Census Bureau’s August New Home Sales report, as highlighted by housing economist Bill McBride of Calculated Risk. They take on added urgency as builders enter the final months of 2026, racing to move homes through the remaining stages of construction, complete deliveries before winter and year-end, and convert invested capital back into cash.
These are homes for sale, not homes already under contract. But that distinction should not be mistaken for a lack of financial exposure. By the time a builder has secured land, developed lots, obtained permits, and committed to a speculative home, the builder has already invested capital and assumed risk. For the 256,000 homes under construction, those commitments are substantially further along.
Many of those homes are approaching the point where a reliable sequence of finishing trades determines whether a project closes on schedule or slips into another month, quarter, or year. Drywall installers, painters, flooring crews, finish carpenters, and other subcontractors must arrive in the right order, with little room for delays.
That’s where a serious problem has taken hold in the homebuilding landscape.
Just as homebuilders need to complete work already underway, the skilled trade crews required to finish those homes are becoming harder to secure. Immigration enforcement is adding another layer of disruption to an already constrained workforce, threatening construction schedules, increasing carrying costs and putting additional pressure on businesses whose margins and cash flows are already stretched.
It would be one thing if immigration enforcement were merely reducing the availability of construction workers. What’s now becoming clear is that an industry already struggling to sell homes may be unable to reliably finish the homes it has invested so much upfront capital in.
A labor shortage in a slowing housing market
Normally, slower homebuilding activity would ease competition for construction workers. With fewer new starts, builders should have more flexibility to secure the crews needed to complete projects already underway.
But residential construction does not operate in isolation. Skilled workers and subcontractors can pursue opportunities in commercial construction, infrastructure, and the rapidly expanding data-center sector, where demand for certain trades remains strong. As a result, a slowdown in new-home production does not necessarily translate into greater labor availability for homebuilders.
Immigration enforcement is now ratcheting up that squeeze.
The combination is particularly dangerous at this point in the construction and business cycle. Builders are entering the final weeks of the year with significant capital tied up in homes at various stages of completion. Many are trying to complete projects before winter weather complicates schedules and before year-end financial and delivery targets come due.
A shortage of framing crews can delay a project early in its timeline. A shortage of drywall installers, painters, flooring specialists, or finish carpenters can prevent a nearly completed home from being delivered, even after most of its construction costs have already been incurred.
A home that is 90% complete is not 90% of a closing. Until the remaining work is finished, inspections are passed and a buyer can take possession, the builder may be unable to realize the expected sales proceeds. Meanwhile, construction financing, overhead, taxes, insurance and other carrying costs continue.
For speculative homes without buyers, delays extend the period during which builders must finance inventory in an already difficult sales environment. For homes under contract, delays can jeopardize closing dates, buyer commitments, and expected loan repayments.
The screws turn even tighter for privately held regional and local builders, whose access to capital and financial reserves may be more limited than that of their larger publicly traded competitors.
This is why the industry’s labor shortage cannot be viewed merely as another construction cost pressure. It has become a potential constraint on builders’ ability to convert work in progress into completed homes, to repay financing, and to sustain their businesses.
The greater the competition for skilled workers from other sectors, the less capacity homebuilders have to absorb additional disruptions caused by immigration enforcement.
And the closer a home gets to completion, the more meaningful even a relatively short schedule hiccup can become.
The workers who make homebuilding possible
New research from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies makes clear why immigration policy directly affects the industry’s ability to build.
In a research brief published on October 8, senior research analyst Riordan Frost found that immigrants accounted for 35% of the nation’s construction trades workforce in 2024, even though foreign-born workers made up only 18% of the overall U.S. labor force.
The concentration is substantially higher in occupations central to residential construction.
Foreign-born workers accounted for 57% of drywall and ceiling tile installers, 53% of roofers, 53% of painters and 51% of flooring installers. They represented 44% of construction laborers and 35% of carpenters.
Perhaps the study’s key finding concerns how the workforce has changed over time. Between 2013 and 2024, foreign-born workers accounted for all net growth in the construction trades workforce. The number of native-born trades workers remained below its pre-Great Recession level.
Among construction laborers, the workforce grew by 236,000 during that period because an increase of 273,000 foreign-born workers more than offset a decline of 37,000 among native-born workers.
These findings do not mean that Americans cannot or should not be recruited into construction careers. They mean that the industry’s current workforce has developed around substantial immigrant participation, and replacing that capacity will require far more than a change in recruiting language.
Attraction to construction careers has shown signs of life as AI disruption clouds livelihoods in other job sectors. But it doesn’t happen with the flip of a switch.
Nor does the term immigrant worker mean undocumented worker. Harvard’s figures include foreign-born workers regardless of whether they are naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, temporary visa holders or undocumented immigrants.
On the ground and among the trades, that’s important both legally and analytically.
The available data do not precisely establish how many undocumented workers are employed on residential jobsites. Workers hired through
Source: www.housingwire.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.