U.S. Housing Starts Increase in September; Building Permits Decline
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Rise in single-family starts is moderate.
- Increase fails to include Northeast.
- Single-family permits rise again, but multi-family permits decline.
Total housing starts rose 7.0% (-7.2% y/y) during September to 1.358 million (SAAR) after falling 12.5% in August to 1.269 million, revised from 1.283 million. Starts were 24.7% below the most recent peak of 1.803 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.388 million starts in September.
Starts of single-family homes rose 3.2% in September (8.6% y/y) from 933,000 in August, revised from 941,000. Single-family starts have moved up with the improvement in single-family home sales. Starts of multi-family units increased 17.6% (-31.4% y/y) to 395,000 from 336,000 in August, revised from 342,000. Multi-family starts still remain close to their 2020 lows.
By region, in contrast to the rise in starts overall, Northeastern starts declined 24.5% in September (-43.9% y/y) to 83,000 after three straight months of moderate gain. Starts in the Midwest rose 35.3% (-3.3% y/y) to 203,000 following a 13.8% August decline. Starts in the South rose 6.5% (4.6% y/y) to 772,000 after falling in each of the prior three months. In the West, starts rose 5.6% (-18.3% y/y) to 300,000 last month following a 26.8% August falloff.
Building permits fell 4.4% (-7.2% y/y) in September to 1.473 million after a 6.8% August rise to 1.541 million, revised from 1.543 million. Single-family permits rose 1.8% (11.6% y/y) to 965,000 after increasing 1.9% in August. They have risen for eight straight months. Multi-family permits fell 14.3% last month (-29.7% y/y) to 508,000 after a 15.6% August rise.
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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