U.S. Housing Starts Decline in November; Building Permits Rise
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Single-family starts recover after two hurricanes; multi-family starts continue downward.
- Regional movement is mixed.
- Building permits rise due to strength in multi-family sector.
Total housing starts weakened 1.8% in November (-14.6% y/y) to 1.289 million (SAAR) after falling a minimally revised 3.2% during October to 1.312 million and 1.7% in September to 1.355 million, which also was minimally revised. Starts were 29.5% below the most recent peak of 1.828 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.344 million starts in November.
Single-family starts rose 6.4% (-10.2% y/y) to 1.011 million last month after falling 9.1% to 950,000 in October, revised from 970,000. They rose 3.9% in September to 1.045 million. Multi-family starts declined 23.2% last month (-27.6% y/y) to 278,000 after rising 16.8% to 362,000 in October. They reached a high of 624,000 units in November 2022.
Starts in the Northeast rose 10.6% (-10.9% y/y) last month to 115,000 following a 37.0% October decline. Starts in the South improved 10.2% (-11.1% y/y) to 727,000 after falling 9.2% in October. Moving lower, starts in the Midwest slumped 28.2% (-22.2% y/y) to 158,000 after rising 24.3% in October. Starts in the West weakened 11.9% (-19.7% y/y) to 289,000 units after rising 14.7% in October.
Building permits increased 6.1% (-0.2% y/y) in November to 1.505 million after slipping 0.4% in October to 1.419 million units, revised from 1.416 million. Single-family permits edged 0.1% higher (-2.7% y/y) to 972,000 last month after improving 0.8% in October. Countering this weakness, multi-family permits rose 19.0% (4.7% y/y) to 533,000 last month, after a 3.0% October decline.
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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