The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Housing Market Index (HMI) is a gauge of builder opinion on the relative level of current and future single-family home sales. It is a diffusion index, which means that a reading above 50 indicates a favorable outlook on home sales; below 50 indicates a negative outlook.

The latest reading of 83 is up 5 from last month's 78 and at its highest level in the indicator's history, exceeding its December 1998 record.

Here's an introduction from this morning's blog update:

In a strong signal that housing is leading the economic recovery, builder confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes increased five points to hit an all-time high of 83 in September, according to the latest NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. The previous highest reading of 78 in the 35-year history of the series was set last month and also matched in December 1998.

Here is the historical series, which dates from 1985.

The HMI correlates fairly closely with broad measures of consumer confidence. Here is a pair of overlays with the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (through the previous month) and the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index (through the current month).