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Housing starts plunge 11%, payback for temporary NYC surge in June
Housing starts fell 11% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 965,000 in July, close to the 960,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. It's the lowest level in 17 years. June's starts were revised higher to a 1.084 million annual pace. Housing starts are down 29.6% in the past year.For single-family homes only, permits fell 5.2% to a 584,000 pace, the lowest since August 1982. Single-family permits have plunged 41.4% in the past year. The number of permits for single-family homes in the West region fell 10.8% to the lowest level in at least 20 years.
MarketWatch
Single-family housing permits fall to 26-year low
Housing starts plunge 11%, payback for temporary NYC surge in June
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
August 19, 2008
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Housing starts fell 11% to a seaso nally adjusted annual rate of 965,000 in July, close to the 960,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar. It's the lowest level in 17 years. June's starts were revised higher to a 1.084 million annual pace.
Housing starts are down 29.6% in the past year.
Builders are frantically cutting back their production of new homes, trying to work off a mammoth glut of unsold inventory. Rising foreclosures on existing homes are complicating the builders' efforts to bring supply back down to meet sluggish demand.
The big decline in July was largely pay back from a surge of permits and starts in June that were sparked by a new building code in New York City that provided a big incentive to rush big condo and apartment building permits through before July 1.
The number of building permits for single-family homes and condos fell 17.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 937,000, down 32.4% in the past year.
For single-family homes only, permits fell 5.2% to a 584,000 pace, the lowest since August 1982. Single-family permits have plunged 41.4% in the past year. The number of permits for single-family homes in the West region fell 10.8% to the lowest level in at least 20 years.
The number of single-family homes under construction in July fell 3.5% to 491,000, the lowest in 16 years. The number of single-family homes completed dropped 7.2% in July to a 791,000 annual pace, the lowest since March 1983.
The government cautions that its monthly housing data are volatile and subject to large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government can't be sure whether starts increased or decreased. In July, for instance, the standard error for starts was plus or minus 9%. Large revisions are common.
It can take four months for a new trend in housing starts to emerge from the data. In the past four months, housing starts have averaged 1 million annualized, down from 1.01 million in the four months ending in June.
On Monday, the National Association of Home Builders said builder confidence remained at an all-time low in August, although expectations for future sales improved slightly.
Rex Nutting is Washington bureau chief of MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-housing-starts-down-11/story.aspx?guid=%7BEE2FBBD8%2D7BB9%2D42F6%2DABDD%2D0EE890B2664B%7D&siteid=bnbh |
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