The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo have released the February Housing Market Index, a monthly gauge of builder confidence in the national housing market. The index number of overall confidence in February was 29, a 4 point climb from January, when it was at 25. This is the fifth month in a row the number has gone up, and while still low, it is a promising indication that confidence in the market is improving nationwide. The Index includes information on different regions, but not for New York City specifically. But as we've written before, the is healthy.

The index works like this: The National Association of Home Builders asks builders three questions. The first is how they feel sales of single-family homes are at the moment. The second question is how they feel sales will be over the next six months. For both questions builders have three answers to choose from: “good,” “fair,” or “poor.” The third question is what builders think of the traffic of prospective buyers. They can answer with “high to very high,” “average,” or “low to very low.” The National Association of Home Builders than converts this information into digits. A score over 50 indicates that more builders are confident in the market than those who are not.

A score of 29 is by no means ideal, but it is a vast improvement over the lows that plagued the economy in 2009, when the number was 8, and even in New York, one-bedroom condos were a luxury few could afford. 29 is the highest that the index has seen since May 2007. And while builders and brokers anticipate struggles in the future, as bargain-priced foreclosures compete with new buildings, and the overall economy remains shaky, confidence is still higher than most economists expected for this month.

While condos in Manhattan are doing well, the same can’t be said for the northeast as a region. In this area the regional index is at 21. But that says more about areas outside of Manhattan than it does about new condos in NYC. And the overall improvement can still be read as good news. Part of the city’s buoyancy has been the result of , and the super-rich. Middle class buyers have still struggled, though with less difficulty, than their counterparts in other areas. If confidence in the national market rises, lower-income New Yorkers should begin to have less trouble finding places to live.