New Residential Housing Starts Below August Forecast

September 17, 2015 by

real estateJill Mislinski:  The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for August new residential housing starts.

The latest reading of 1.126M was below the Investing.com forecast of 1.170M.

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

Privately-owned housing starts in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,126,000. This is 3.0 percent (±11.3%)* below the revised July estimate of 1,161,000, but is 16.6 percent (±10.4%) above the August 2014 rate of 966,000.

Single-family housing starts in August were at a rate of 739,000; this is 3.0 percent (±9.5%)* below the revised July figure of 762,000. The August rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 381,000. [link to report]

Here is the historical series for total privately-owned housing starts, which dates from 1959. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.

Housing Starts

The Population-Adjusted Reality

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 1959. 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 Starts 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.

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