Following August’s surprisingly large jump, building permits and housing starts were expected to slow down significantly in September, and slow-down they did.
After the 5.6% MoM surge (revised down from +6.0% MoM) in August, Building Permits plunged 7.7% MoM in September (dramatically worse than the 2.4% MoM drop expected).
Housing Starts were dramatically revised lower in August (from +3.9% MoM to +1.2% MoM) and September saw starts tumble 1.6% MoM (considerably worse than the 0.0% expected).
Source: Bloomberg
Permits are at their lowest level since September 2020 and Starts are at 6-month lows…
Source: Bloomberg
Multi-family permits plunged 21% SAAR from 630K to 498K while single-family permits slide to 1.041MM, the lowest since July 2020.
Single-family home starts were unchanged at 1.080MM while multi-family starts dropped 5.1% SAAR from 492K to 467K
All of which is odd given that NAHB sentiment just rebounded strongly…
Maybe homebuyers know better after all.
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-housing-starts-building-permits-plunge-september
