Housing Starts Dive Led by Multi-Family, Revisions Negative
Housing starts are down 4% in July with multi-family down 17.2% and single-family up 1.3%. Permits are up 8.4%.
Let’s step back and make sense of it all.
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Housing Peaked May of 2018: Cycle Trends Suggest Long, Weak Recovery is Over
by Mish Shedlock, The Maven:
Expect Revisions
My first thought at looking at the Census Bureau’s New Residential Construction Report for July is a frequent one:. Expect revisions.
Here are the key numbers, soon to be revised, and perhaps hugely so.
Building Permits
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,336,000. This is 8.4 percent above the revised June rate of 1,232,000 and is 1.5 percent above the July 2018 rate of 1,316,000. Single‐family authorizations in July were at a rate of 838,000; this is 1.8 percent above the revised June figure of 823,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 453,000 in July.
Housing Starts
Privately‐owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,191,000. This is 4.0 percent below the revised June estimate of 1,241,000, but is 0.6 percent above the July 2018 rate of 1,184,000. Single‐family housing starts in July were at a rate of 876,000; this is 1.3 percent above the revised June figure of 865,000. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 303,000.
Housing Completions
Privately‐owned housing completions in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,250,000. This is 7.2 percent above the revised June estimate of 1,166,000 and is 6.3 percent above the July 2018 rate of 1,176,000. Single‐family housing completions in July were at a rate of 918,000; this is 4.3 percent above the revised June rate of 880,000. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 321,000.
Housing Starts Seasonally Adjusted
Deceptive Year-Over-Year Totals
The year-over-year single-family numbers look OK but July of 2018 offered a relatively easy comparison.
August and September will provide much harder comparisons.
Then November and December will provide extremely easy comparisons following by January of 2019 with an extremely difficult year-over-year comparison.
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