New Residential Building Permits: Up In September

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for September new residential building permits. The latest reading of 1.215M was a decrease from 1.272M in August and above the Investing.com forecast of 1.245M.

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

Building Permits

Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,215,000. This is 4.5 percent (±1.6 percent) below the revised August rate of 1,272,000 and is 4.3 percent (±1.7 percent) below the September 2016 rate of 1,270,000. Single-family authorizations in September were at a rate of 819,000; this is 2.4 percent (±1.7 percent) above the revised August figure of 800,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 360,000 in
September.

Housing Starts

Privately-owned housing starts in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,127,000. This is 4.7 percent (±8.1 percent)* below the revised August estimate of 1,183,000, but is 6.1 percent (±8.8 percent)* above the September 2016 rate of 1,062,000. Single-family housing starts in September were at a rate of 829,000; this is 4.6 percent (±8.5 percent)* below the revised August figure of 869,000. The September rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 286,000. [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.

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.