U.S. Housing Starts Fall Further in June
by:Sandy Batten
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
• Starts level is lowest since September 2021.
• Building permits edged down to nine-month low.
• Single family starts and permits fell while multi-family rebounded.
Rising interest rates and home prices along with ongoing supply-chain problems continued to weigh on new residential construction in June. Housing starts declined 2.0% m/m (-6.3% y/y) in June to 1.559 million units at an annual rate following an upwardly revised 11.9% m/m decline in May (initially -14.4% m/m). The June reading was the lowest level of starts since September 2021. The Action Economics Forecast Survey had expected 1.585 million starts in June.
Single-family starts declined 8.1% m/m (-15.7% y/y) in June to 982,000 units at an annual rate, their fourth consecutive monthly decline, on top of a 9.0% m/m drop in May (revised up slightly from -9.2% m/m). By contrast, starts of multi-family units rebounded in June, rising 10.3% m/m (+15.6% y/y) to 577,000 units after an upwardly revised 17.2% m/m collapse in May (initially -23.7% m/m).
By region, housing starts were mixed last month. Starts in the Northeast increased 10.6% m/m in June on top of a 6.0% monthly rise in May. Starts in the West rose 3.7% m/m in June, but this fell far short of reversing the 18.2% monthly drop in May. By contrast, starts in the Midwest slumped 7.7% m/m in June, more than reversing their 6.4% monthly gain in May. And starts in the South declined 4.8% m/m in June on top of a 15.4% m/m plunge in May and their third monthly decline in the past four months.
Building permits edged down 0.6% m/m (+1.4% y/y) in June to 1.685 million units at an annual rate, their third consecutive monthly decline, following a 7.0% m/m decline in May. Permits to build single-family homes plunged 8.0% m/m (-11.4% y/y), their fourth consecutive monthly decline, following a 5.2% monthly drop in May. Again by contrast, permits to build multi-family units jumped up 11.5% m/m (+26.0% y/y) in June, their first monthly increase in three months, following a 9.8% m/m drop in May.
The housing starts and permits figures can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Sandy Batten
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Sandy Batten has more than 30 years of experience analyzing industrial economies and financial markets and a wide range of experience across the financial services sector, government, and academia. Before joining Haver Analytics, Sandy was a Vice President and Senior Economist at Citibank; Senior Credit Market Analyst at CDC Investment Management, Managing Director at Bear Stearns, and Executive Director at JPMorgan. In 2008, Sandy was named the most accurate US forecaster by the National Association for Business Economics. He is a member of the New York Forecasters Club, NABE, and the American Economic Association. Prior to his time in the financial services sector, Sandy was a Research Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Senior Staff Economist on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the US Treasury, and Economist at the International Monetary Fund. Sandy has taught economics at St. Louis University, Denison University, and Muskingun College. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in a wide range of academic publications. He has a B.A. in economics from the University of Richmond and a M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from The Ohio State University.
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