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Housing is an important source of economic growth. As of the first quarter of 2014, housing’s share of gross domestic product (GDP) was 15.5 percent, with home building yielding 3 percentage points of that total. Housing-related activities contribute to GDP in two basic ways. The first is through residential fixed investment (RFI). RFI is effectively the measure of the home building and remodeling contribution to GDP. It includes construction of new single-family and multifamily structures, residential remodeling, production of manufactured homes and brokers’ fees. For the fourth quarter, RFI was 3 percent of the economy.