Finally, some good news in the home construction world as building permits and completions were both up in September, according to the Census Bureau’s September New Residential Construction report.
- HOUSING STARTS: The only bad news in the report had privately-owned housing starts falling 8.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,439,000, this is 7.7% lower than last year and worse than economist predictions of a 6.2% drop.
- BUILDING PERMITS: Privately-owned housing units unexpectedly rose in September by 1.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,564,000, this is higher than economist predictions of a 0.7% drop but is still 3.2% lower than last year.
- HOUSING COMPLETIONS: Continues to be the bright spot for construction as privately owned housing completions were up 6.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,427,000, this is up 15.7% from last year.
Southern Domination. Regionally, the South continues to dominate all categories. The South represents 54.5% of all building permits, 51.3% of housing starts, and 54.7% of housing completions.
- Regarding single-family, the South’s dominance is even more pronounced, representing 60.7% of building permits, 60.1% of housing starts, and 61.6% of housing completions.
Analysis. Most of the decline in construction is single-family according to an analysis by Eric Basamajian at EPR Research “Building permits are declining, down 18% from the peak. But this decline is entirely from single-family permits, which are down 28% from the peak. Multi-family permits continue to trend higher.”