U.S. Housing Starts and Permits Move Lower in September
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Multi-family starts fall sharply but single-family starts rise to five-month high.
- Starts decline in three out of four regions of country.
- Building permits sideways trend continues.
Total housing starts slipped 0.5% (-0.7% y/y) during September to 1.354 million (SAAR) after rising 7.8% in August to 1.361 million, revised from 1.356 million. July starts fell 5.0% to a 1.262 million, revised from 1.237 million. Starts remained 25.9% below the most recent peak of 1.828 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.349 million starts in September.
Multi-family starts dropped 9.4% (-16.2% y/y) to 327,000 last month, following a 10.0% August shortfall to 361,000. They reached a high of 624,000 units in November 2022. Offsetting this decline, single-family starts rose 2.7% (5.5% y/y) to 1.027 million after rising 16.1% in August. Single-family starts stood at the highest level since April.
Starts were down in most parts of the country. Starts in the Midwest fell 9.1% (-6.3% y/y) to 179,000 following a 9.4% August increase. Starts in the South weakened 3.4% (-6.6% y/y) to 738,000 after rising 19.7% in August. Also falling were starts in the West which weakened 10.1% (-13.2% y/y) to 257,000 after rising 5.5% in August. Starts in the Northeast surged 57.9% (109.3% y/y) to 180,000 units after falling 34.1% in August.
Building permits weakened 2.9% (-5.7% y/y) in September to 1.428 million units after rising 4.6% in August. Single-family permits edged 0.3% higher (-1.2% y/y) to 970,000 last month after rising 2.8% in August. Multi-family permits declined 8.9% (-14.1% y/y) to 458,000, after increasing 8.2% in August.
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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