New Residential Housing Starts Down In Again In August
Jill Mislinski | Sep 19, 2017 09:10AM ET
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for August new residential housing starts. The latest reading of 1.180M was above the Investing.com forecast of 1.175M and a decrease from the previous month's upwardly revised 1.190M.
Here is the opening of this morning's monthly report:
Building Permits
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,300,000. This is 5.7 percent (±2.0 percent) above the revised July rate of 1,230,000 and is 8.3 percent (±1.6 percent) above the August 2016 rate of 1,200,000. Single-family authorizations in August were at a rate of 800,000; this is 1.5 percent (±1.3 percent) below the revised July figure of 812,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 464,000 in August.
Housing Starts
Privately-owned housing starts in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,180,000. This is 0.8 percent (±9.6 percent)* below the revised July estimate of 1,190,000, but is 1.4 percent (±8.9 percent)* above the August 2016 rate of 1,164,000. Single-family housing starts in August were at a rate of 851,000; this is 1.6 percent (±9.0 percent)* above the revised July figure of 838,000. The August rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 323,000. [link to report ]
Here is the historical series for total privately-owned housing starts, which dates from 1959. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.
The Population-Adjusted Reality
Here is the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show substantial growth in the US population since 1959. Here is a chart of housing starts as a percent of the population. We've added a linear regression through the monthly data to highlight the trend.
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A Footnote on Volatility
The extreme volatility of this monthly indicator is the rationale for paying more attention to its 6-month moving average than to its noisy monthly change. Over the complete data series, the absolute MoM average percent change is 6.3%. The MoM range minimum is -26.4% and the maximum is 29.3%.
For visual confirmation of the volatility, here is a snapshot of the monthly percent change since 1990.
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