U.S. Housing Starts Decline Moderately While Building Permits Dip in October
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Single-family starts tumble as two hurricanes strike.
- Regional movement is mixed.
- Building permits ease to three-month low.
Total housing starts fell 3.1% (-4.0% y/y) during October to 1.311 million (SAAR) after declining 1.9% in September to 1.353, revised from 1.354 million. Starts rose 9.3% in August to 1.379 million, revised from 1.361 million. Hurricanes Helene and Milton are likely to have affected housing activity during October. Starts were 28.3% below the most recent peak of 1.828 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.33 million starts in October.
Single-family starts fell 6.9% (-0.5% y/y) to 970,000 last month after rising 3.6% to 1.042 million in September, revised from 1.027 million. They rose 16.8% in August to 1.006 million. In October, single-family starts were at the lowest level in three months. Multi-family starts rose 9.6% last month (-12.6% y/y) to 341,000 after falling 16.6% to 311,000 in September. They reached a high of 624,000 units in November 2022.
Starts in the Northeast declined 32.9% (+39.2% y/y) to 110,000 and reversed a 36.7% September increase. Starts in the South weakened 8.8% (-7.8% y/y) to 666,000 after falling 4.3% in September. Moving higher, starts in the West jumped 21.1% (-4.0% y/y) to 338,000 after falling 3.8% in September. Starts in the Midwest rose 9.4% (-7.1% y/y) to 197,000 units after falling 12.6% in September.
Building permits slipped 0.6% (-7.7% y/y) in October to 1.416 million after declining 3.1% in September to 1.425 million units, revised from 1.428 million. Single-family permits edged 0.5% higher (-1.8% y/y) to 968,000 last month after easing 0.4% in September. Multi-family permits declined 3.0% (-18.2% y/y) to 448,000, after declining 8.2% in September.
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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