Today’s New Residential Construction Report continues to firmly demonstrate the intensity and completeness of the washout conditions that now exist in the nation’s housing markets particularly for new residential construction showing tremendous declines on both a peak and year-over-year basis to single family permits both nationally and across every region.It’s important to note that today’s results appear to indicate that a new leg in the housing decline commenced between October and November with permit activity falling at the most significant rate seen in this decline.
Single family housing permits, the most leading of indicators, again suggests extensive weakness in future construction activity dropping 46.28% nationally as compared to November 2007 and an astonishing 73.79% since the peak in January 2005.
Moreover, every region showed significant double digit declines to permits with the Northeast declining 40.0%, the Midwest declining 42.7%, the South declining 48.5%, and the West declining a stunning 46.3% on a year-over-year basis.
Keep in mind that these declines are coming on the back of last year’s record declines.
To illustrate the extent to which permits and starts have declined, I have created the following charts (click for larger versions) that show the percentage changes of the current values on a year-over-year basis as well as compared to the peak year of 2004.
Declines to single family permits have contracted measurably in terms of monthly YOY declines, and the fact that we are now seeing declines of roughly 30%-50% on the back of 2006 and 2007 declines should provide a an unequivocal indication that the housing markets are by no means stabilizing.
Here are the seasonally adjusted statistics outlined in today’s report:Housing Permits
Nationally
- Single family housing permits down 46.3% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Northeast, single family housing down 40.0% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Midwest, single family housing permits down 42.7% as compared to November 2007.
- For the South, single family housing permits down 48.5% compared to November 2007.
- For the West, single family housing permits down 46.3% as compared to November 2007.
Nationally
- Single family housing starts down 46.0% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Northeast, single family housing starts down 59.8% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Midwest, single family housing starts down 41.7% as compared to November 2007.
- For the South, single family housing starts down 45.7% as compared to November 2007.
- For the West, single family housing starts down 43.4% as compared to November 2007.
Nationally
- Single family housing completions down 33.3% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Northeast, single family housing completions down 24.7% as compared to November 2007.
- For the Midwest, single family housing completions down 32.6% as compared to November 2007.
- For the South, single family housing completions down 30.5% as compared to November 2007.
- For the West, single family housing completions down 41.4% as compared to November 2007.
