Tuesday, April 17, 2007

New Residential Construction Report: March 2007

Popularly reported as an “unexpected rise” in housing starts, today’s New Residential Construction Report continues to indicate significant weakness in the nations housing markets and for residential construction.

In particular, housing permits, the report most leading of indicators, again indicates substantial weakness in future construction activity both nationally and across every reported region.

As predicted, housing completions are now declining significantly on a year-over-year basis indicating that the contraction in construction activity may soon be reflected by a substantial drop-off in construction related jobs as older projects reach completion and newer projects start at a far slower pace.

Now, we are well within the period in which permits and starts began to show significant weakness last year so the current double-digit year-over-year declines to those measures unequivocally indicate that the housing market has not yet stabilized.

Here are the statistics outlined in today’s report:

Housing Permits

Nationally

  • Single family housing permits up 1.4% from February, down 28.4% as compared to March 2006
Regionally

  • For the Northeast, single family housing up 1.3% from February, down 35.7% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the West, single family housing permits up 2.1% from February, down 22.7% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the Midwest, single family housing permits up 19.5% from February, down 29.1% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the South, single family housing permits down 3.6% from February, down 29.6% compared to March 2006.
Housing Starts

Nationally

  • Single family housing starts up 2.0% from February, down 24.6% as compared to March 2006.
Regionally

  • For the Northeast, single family housing starts down 7.8% from February, down 35.2% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the West, single family housing starts down 5.9% from February, down 26.7% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the Midwest, single family housing starts up 35.9% from February, down 17.2% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the South, single family housing starts down 0.5% from February, down 24.1% as compared to March 2006.
Housing Completions

Nationally

  • Single family housing completions up 1.5% from February, down 28.9% as compared to March 2006.
Regionally

  • For the Northeast, single family housing completions down 16.2% from February, down 35.8% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the West, single family housing completions up 17.8% from February, down 28.3% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the Midwest, single family housing completions up 7.6% from February, down 36.0% as compared to March 2006.
  • For the South, single family housing completions down 3.8% from February, down 25.9% as compared to March 2006.
Keep in mind that this particular report does NOT factor in the cancellations that have been widely reported to be occurring in new construction.

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