U.S. Housing Starts Decline in January
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Single-family and multi-family starts weaken.
- Starts are mixed across the country.
- Building permits are little changed.
The housing market continues to suffer under the weight of higher interest rates and reduced demand. Total housing starts fell 4.5% (-21.4% y/y) during January to 1.309 million units (SAAR) from 1.371 million in December, revised from 1.382 million. Starts have fallen for five straight months and were 27.5% below the April 2022 peak of 1.805 million units. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.37 million starts in January.
The decline in starts last month occurred as single-family starts fell 4.3% (-27.3% y/y) to 841,000 after rising 8.9% in December. They have fallen 35.7% since the December 2020 peak. Multi-family starts weakened 4.9% (-8.1% y/y) last month to 468,000 after falling 19.6% in the prior month. They were 25.9% below the April 2022 peak.
Starts in the Northeast fell 42.2% (+13.3% y/y) to 119,000 after surging 136.8% in December. Starts in the Midwest declined 25.9% (-37.2% y/y) to 123,000 after falling 30.3% in December. To the upside, starts in the South increased 7.3% (-17.3% y/y) to 760,000 after two months of decline. Starts in the West rose 5.5% (-31.2% y/y) to 307,000 after falling 16.9% in December.
Building permits rose 0.1% (-27.3% y/y) to 1.339 million units during January from 1.337 million in December, revised from 1.330 million. Single-family permits declined 1.8% (-40.0% y/y) to 718,000 after falling for ten consecutive months. Multi-family permits rose 2.5% (-3.6% y/y) to 621,000 after rising 6.3% in December.
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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