U.S. STARTS DECLINE
Housing start news out of the United States this week wasn’t promising as the U.S. Commerce Department released the August figures, which were down by five per cent nationwide.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate for the month was 571,000 units. The decline was primarily on the more volatile multifamily side, with single-family housing production edging down just 1.4 per cent. Meanwhile, permits for new construction posted modest gains in both sectors.
"At this point, most builders are only looking to replenish their depleted inventories of new homes for sale, but otherwise holding off on new projects," said National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chairman Bob Nielsen, a home builder from Reno, Nev. "While we would like to get more crews back on the job, we need to see solid improvement in consumer demand, greater access to credit for both builders and buyers, and a reduction in the number of foreclosed properties on the market before we can ramp up new production."
"Today's numbers are completely consistent with NAHB's forecast for the quarter, and are in keeping with the anemic economic and job growth we are seeing across most of the country," said NAHB Senior Economist Robert Denk. "That said, we continue to anticipate modest gains in new-home production through the end of this year with greater momentum building into 2013, and some pockets of improvement are already evident in about a dozen metros nationwide."
Single-family housing starts declined 1.4 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 417,000 units in August, while multifamily production - which tends to display greater volatility on a month to month basis - declined 13.5 per cent to a 154,000-unit rate. Regionally, combined starts activity was mixed in August, with the Midwest and West posting gains of 2.6 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively, and the Northeast and South posting declines of 29.1 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively.
Building permits, which can be an indicator of future building activity, rose 3.2 per cent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 620,000 units in August, their highest level since last December. Single-family permits gained 2.5 per cent to 413,000 units, while multifamily permits gained 4.5 per cent to 207,000 units.
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