Craig DiLouie, Editor
Posted July 28, 2008
Responding to worsening conditions in the nation’s housing and financial markets, single-family home builders continued to slow the pace of new construction in June, according to the latest data recently released by the U.S. Commerce Department.
Starts of new single-family homes declined 5.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 647,000 units in June. This was the slowest pace in 17 years, and marked a decline of 64.5% from the peak of the building boom in January of 2006. Meanwhile, issuance of building permits for single-family homes declined 3.5% to a rate of 613,000 units.
Overall housing starts and building permits posted misleading gains of 9.1% and 11.6%, to 1.07 million units and 1.09 million units, respectively, for the month, largely due to a one-time bump in multifamily activity that was related to newly instituted building code changes in New York City. Excluding the Northeast multifamily data, there was a 4% decrease in overall housing starts and a 0.7% gain in building permits for the month.
Multifamily housing starts, fueled by a big jump in the Northeast, posted a 42.5% gain to a rate of 419,000 units in June. Multifamily permits, also skewed by the Northeast/New York City data, posted a 39.4% gain to 478,000 units.
The latest regional data showed that Northeast housing starts more than doubled in June (as a result of the New York City data), while Midwest starts posted a 10.5% decline, starts in the South posted a 0.4% gain and starts in the West registered an 8.2% decline in June. Building permits (again affected by the New York City data) showed a 73% gain in the Northeast for June, along with more typical numbers such as a 2% decline in the Midwest, a 3% gain in the South and a 0.9% gain in the West.
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