Today’s New Residential Construction Report showed pronounced weakness with total permit activity declining 7.7% since February while total starts declined a notable 8.8% over the same period.
Single family housing permits, the most leading of indicators, declined 1.2% from February to 727K single family units (SAAR), but rose 13.2% above the level seen a year earlier and still remained well below levels seen at the peak in September 2005.
Single family housing starts declined a notable 9.2% from February to 764K units (SAAR) but rose 22.6% above the level seen a year earlier but still remained well below the levels seen at the peak in September 2005.