Despite ugly consumer confidence and soaring mortgage rates, analysts expected a small rebound in housing starts and building permits in May (after April’s disappointing misses). They were wrong… again… as both Starts and Permits plunged MoM (-5.5% MoM and -3.8% MoM respectively)…
That was the third monthly drop in permits (more forward looking) in a row. Worse still, April Housing Starts were revised lower (from +5.7% to +4.1%), making this miss even worse.
This dragged the SAARs for starts and permits to their lowest since the trough of COVID…
Source: Bloomberg
With Multifamily starts falling back near COVID lockdown lows…
- Single-Family 982K SAAR, down 4.8% from 1,031K and the first sub-million print since October 2023
- Multi-Family 278K, down 13.7% from 322K and the lowest since March’s 245K (which was the lowest print since covid crash)
- More