Housing Starts Data Better than Headline Suggests in October 2014

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Housing Starts

  • October Housing Starts were 1.009M (saar) vs. (E) 1.028M (saar).

Takeaway

The housing starts number was a miss on the headline but the details were actually good.

As always with housing starts, the two key numbers are single family housing starts and single family building permits (which led starts by 3-6 months).

Single family “starts” rose 4.2% in October and the September number was revised higher to 4.2%. Also, single family permits rose 1.4% in October.

The drop in the headline number was due to multi-family housing units declining 15.4% in October. But, the reason we look at this number is to get a gauge of the single family housing market, and yesterday’s data implied that demand for housing (specifically new homes) remains very healthy, and nothing in the number would make us doubt the housing recovery.

This was an excerpt from the Economic Section of today’s edition of the Sevens Report. To continue reading today’s Report simply sign up for a No-Risk Free Trial on the right hand side of this page.