U.S. Housing Starts Strengthen in November
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Rise in starts is led by surge in single-family.
- Activity improves across the country.
- Building permits decline, led by multi-family.
Amidst falling mortgage rates, total housing starts rose 14.8% (9.3% y/y) during November to 1.56 million (SAAR) from 1.359 million in October, revised from 1.372 million. Starts reached the highest level in six months after falling to a roughly three-year low of 1.305 million in August. Starts were 13.5% below the most recent peak of 1.803 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.36 million starts in November.
Starts of single-family units led last month’s gain with an 18.0% increase (42.2% y/y) to 1.143 million following a 0.3% October gain to 969,000. It was the highest level of single-family starts since April 2022 and up from a low of 804,000 in November of last year. Multi-family starts increased 6.9% to 417,000 after holding steady at 390,000 in October. They remained one-third below the year-ago level.
Starts rose throughout the country. In the Northeast, the level of starts doubled m/m in November (67.4% y/y) to 144,000 after a 14.3% October decline. Starts in the Midwest rose 1.4% (-7.9% y/y) to 220,000 following strong increases of 13.0% and 20.0% in the prior two months. Starts in the South improved 16.3% (13.4% y/y) to 849,000 after falling 6.9% in October. In the West, starts rose 2.1% (-1.7% y/y) to 347,000 last month after rising 14.9% in October.
Building permits declined 2.5% (+4.1% y/y) in November to 1.46 million after a 1.8% October gain. Single-family permits rose 0.7% (22.8% y/y) to 976,000 following a similar increase in October. Multi-family permits offset this gain with an 8.5% decline (-20.3% y/y) to 484,000 after rising 4.1% in October. It was the lowest level of multi-family permits since October 2020, off its 800,000 high in December 2021.
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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