With all the talk of a hot real estate market and home prices soaring in certain areas around the country, housing is actually affordable for the rest of the nation, National Association of Home Builders CEO Jerry Howard said Thursday.
"With interest rates being what they are, it's still a great time to buy," he said in an interview with CNBC's "Power Lunch."
According to a recent study by real estate analytics company CoreLogic, seven of the top 100 metropolitan U.S. housing markets are overvalued. Tight supply and strong demand are pushing up prices.
Four of the seven markets are in Texas: Austin, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Charleston, South Carolina, Miami and Washington, D.C., round out the list.
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Meanwhile, U.S. housing starts jumped to their highest level in almost 7 1/2 years in April and permits for future home construction soared 10.1 percent.
New home sales and pending home sales are also up.
Real estate developer Don Peebles, founder and CEO of the Peebles Corp., said the strongest housing markets in terms of pricing and demand are New York and San Francisco.
"Right now in the major cities like New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and other places, there is a shortage of inventory and in fact that's slowing the market down because many people don't want to sell their own homes until they can go into a new home."
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However, he doesn't think housing is overpriced.
"If you look at where housing prices are today adjusted for inflation from the last market cycle, they are still relatively reasonably priced," Peebles said.
Howard also noted that those markets also have some of the most restrictive building requirements in the country, which drives up the cost.
—CNBC's Diana Olick and Reuters contributed to this report.