RE and economic charts: US Housing data: Housing Starts rise 3.9% - for first time since Aug - while Building Permits fell 4% & Completions fell 14%

Thursday, December 16, 2010

US Housing data: Housing Starts rise 3.9% - for first time since Aug - while Building Permits fell 4% & Completions fell 14%

[mEDITate-OR:
think that this was, from the headlines, an improvement.
Not hardly.
The gritty details:
------------
The housing starts and building permits data failed to meet market forecasts
which were expecting housing starts to increase by 6.0 percent
and building permits to rise by 1.5 percent for the month.
-------------
Even with the gain, housing starts are just 16 percent above the 477,000 unit pace from April 2009 — the lowest point on records dating back to 1959.
they are down 76 percent from their peak in January 2006,
and 45 percent below the 1 million annual rate that analysts say is consistent with a healthy housing market.
All the activity last month came from building single-family homes.
They increased to a pace of 465,000 units, a 6.9 percent rise from October.
Apartment construction fell 9.1 percent to a unit pace of 90,000.
--------