Thursday, August 17, 2006

Today’s New Construction Report

Further demonstrating the obvious weakening trend of the US housing market, today’s “New Residential Construction Report”, shows significant, and even severe, declines across all monitored indicators.

Popularly reported as showing a 2.5% decline in housing starts from last months revised figure, the report, if viewed more thoroughly, displays many, far more significant declines.

Although housing starts have declined considerably, especially regionally in the Northeast and the West, more significantly are the declines in building permits which represent the most leading of all the indicators the report tracks.

Here are the statistics outlined in today’s report:

Housing Permits

Nationally

  1. Single family housing permits down 6.1% from June, down 23.5% as compared to July 2005

Regionally

  1. For the Northeast, single family housing permits down 2.9% from June, down 26.1% as compared to July 2005.
  2. For the West, single family housing permits down 14.7% from June, down 33.5% as compared to July 2005.
  3. For the Midwest, single family housing permits down 2.7% from June, down 24.8% as compared to July 2005.
  4. For the South, single family housing permits down 3.3% from June, down 17.0% compared to July 2005.

Housing Starts

Nationally

  1. Single family housing starts down 2.3% from June, down 16.6% as compared to July 2005.

Regionally

  1. For the Northeast, single family housing starts down 12.2% from June, down 23.6% as compared to July 2005.
  2. For the West, single family housing starts down 9.5% from June, down 25.8% as compared to July 2005.
  3. For the Midwest, single family housing starts down 2.3% from June, down 18.9% as compared to July 2005.
  4. For the South, single family housing starts down 0.5% from June, down 9.1% as compared to July 2005.

Keep in mind that this particular report does NOT factor in the cancellations that have been widely reported to be occurring in new construction.

As further reports are released, cancellations should show an even greater effect on permitting, starts and completions.