US October housing starts and building permits October
- prior report
- Housing starts 1.520M vs 1.576M estimate. Previous month 1.53 million revised from 1.555 million
- Building permits 1.650Mvs 1.638M estimate. Previous month 1.586 million unchanged from last month's reading
- Housing starts were down -0.7% versus -1.6% last month
- building permits rose 4.0% versus -7.8% last month
- single-family housing starts came in at 1.039M, -3.9% versus September (1.081M)
- multifamily housing starts came in at 470,000
- privately owned housing completions came in at annual rate of 1.242M, unchanged from the previous month. The completions data is lower than the October 2020 rate of 1.356M. Single-family housing completions came in at 929,000 (-1.7%). Multi-unit pace came in at 302,000.
The mixed report with housing starts lower while building permits, and higher.
Housing starts have declines from the 1.725 million unit pace seen in March. That rate was the highest in over 14 years. Nevertheless, building remains limited by a severe shortage of previously owned homes in the market which has resulted in record house price increases.
The NAHB yesterday reported confidence among single-family home builders with the index rising to 83 from 80. Despite the rise, they noted that supply-side challenges remain including building material bottlenecks and labor shortages. There are 333,000 job openings as of the end of September according to the NAHB.
