July Housing Starts
Updated 17-Aug-10 09:14 ET
Highlights
- Housing starts rose in July, but only because heavy revisions to June's data brought total starts down to their lowest level since October 2009. After the revisions, housing starts rose from 537,000 in June to 546,000 in July.
- The gains were still a disappointment as the Briefing.com consensus expected housing starts to increase to 555,000 during the month.
Key Factors
- The latest data do not look to be a harbinger of steady growth.
- Single-family units, which are the least volatile and expose stable trends, fell for the third consecutive month. At 432,000, the figure is at its lowest level since May 2009.
- The gains in total housing starts were completely due to increases in multifamily construction. Structures with two or more units increased 32.6% to 114,000 in July after falling 33.3% in June.
- Building permits were also a minor disappointment. Permit issuances fell from 583,000 in June to 565,000 in July. The consensus expected a slightly smaller decline to 573,000.
Big Picture
- Housing starts are at extremely low levels and the outlook is not likely to improve any time soon due to high levels of inventories of unsold new homes. An uptrend in construction will require an improvement in employment and income, and then take some time as inventories need to be reduced.
| Category |
JUL |
JUN |
MAY |
APR |
MAR |
| Starts |
546K |
537K |
588K |
679K |
634K |
| 1 Unit |
432K |
451K |
459K |
563K |
535K |
| Multi Units |
114K |
86K |
129K |
116K |
99K |
| Permits |
565K |
583K |
574K |
610K |
685K |
