U.S. Housing Starts & Building Permits Rebound in August
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Increase led by single-family; multi-family starts edge lower.
- Starts rise throughout most of the country.
- Building permits strengthen following sharp decline.
Total housing starts increased 9.6% (3.9% y/y) during August to 1.356 million (SAAR) after falling 6.9% to 1.237 million in July, revised from 1.238 million. Starts in June were unrevised at 1.329 million. Nevertheless, starts remained 25.8% below the most recent peak of 1.828 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.311 million starts in August.
A 15.8% rise (5.2% y/y) in single-family starts to 992,000 was responsible for last month’s overall increase as it followed a 12.8% July decline to 857,000. Starts were at the highest level in three months. A 4.2% decline (+0.6% y/y) in multi-family starts to 364,000 offset the single-family rise as it followed a 9.8% July strengthening to 380,000. They reached a high of 624,000 units in November 2022.
Starts rose regionally through most of the country. Starts in the Midwest surged 29.6% (28.0% y/y) to 206,000 following a 7.0% July decline. Starts in the South rose 15.5% (1.9% y/y) to 745,000 after falling 13.5% in July. Also rising were starts in the West which improved 5.9% (0.7% y/y) to 288,000 after weakening 6.8% in July. Offsetting these gains, starts in the Northeast fell 27.3% (-7.9% y/y) to 117,000 units after rising 34.2% in July.
Building permits rose 4.9% (-6.5% y/y) in August to 1.475 million units after falling 3.3% in July. It was the highest level of permits since March. Single-family permits rose 2.8% (-0.5% y/y) to 967,000 in August after edging 0.2% higher in July. Multi-family permits recovered 9.2% (-16.2% y/y) to 508,000, after falling 9.7% in July.
The housing starts and permits figures can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
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