U.S. Housing Starts Fall Sharply in January
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
- Single-family starts decline and multi-family collapses.
- Starts weaken throughout country.
- Building permits fall moderately.
Total housing starts declined 14.8% (-0.7% y/y) during January to 1.331 million (SAAR) following a 3.3% December rise to 1.562 million, revised from 1.46 million. It was the lowest level of starts since August. Starts were 26.2% below the most recent peak of 1.803 million in April 2022. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.471 million starts in December.
Starts of single-family units declined 4.7% (+22.0% y/y) to 1.004 million following a 6.4% December decline to 1.054 million. Multi-family starts plummeted 35.6 % (-36.8% y/y) to 327,000 after rising 31.6% to 508,000 in December.
Starts declined in each area of the country last month. In the Northeast, the level of starts fell 20.6% (-18.8% y/y) to 104,000 after rising 1.6% in December. Starts in the Midwest were off 30.0% (+10.9% y/y) to 142,000, the third straight month of decline. Starts in the South weakened 9.7% (-4.2% y/y) to 753,000 after rising 1.7% in December. In the West, starts declined 15.7% (+11.4% y/y) to 332,000 after increasing 9.7% in December.
Building permits fell 1.5% (+8.6% y/y) in January to 1.470 million after rising 1.8% to 1.493 million in December, revised from 1.495 million. Single-family permits rose 1.6% (35.7% y/y) to 1.015 million in January following a 2.3% December increase. Multi-family permits weakened 7.9% (-24.9% y/y) to 455,000, after rising 0.8% in December.
The housing starts and permits figures can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
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