New Residential Building Permits: Up 45K In October

November 18, 2015 by

homebuildersJill Mislinski:  The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for October new residential building permits.

The latest reading of 1.150M was on par with the Investing.com forecast of 1.150M.

Here is the opening of this morning’s monthly report:

Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,150,000. This is 4.1 percent (±1.5%) above the revised September rate of 1,105,000 and is 2.7 percent (±2.2%) above the October 2014 estimate of 1,120,000.

Single-family authorizations in October were at a rate of 711,000; this is 2.4 percent (±1.5%) above the revised September figure of 694,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 405,000 in October. [link to report]

Here is the complete historical series, which dates from 1960. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.

Housing Permits

Here is the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau’s mid-month population estimates show substantial growth in the US population since 1960. Here is a chart of housing starts as a percent of the population. We’ve added a linear regression through the monthly data to highlight the trend.

Housing Permits Population-Adjusted

A Footnote on Volatility

The extreme volatility of this monthly indicator is the rationale for paying more attention to its 6-month moving average than to its noisy monthly change. Over the complete data series, the absolute MoM average percent change is 4.4%. The MoM range minimum is -24.0% and the maximum is 33.9%.

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