New Residential Building Permits Rise 10.1% In April -

New Residential Building Permits Rise 10.1% In April

May 19, 2015Jeremy ParkinsonFinance0

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

The latest reading of 1.143M was well above the Investing.com forecast of 1.060M.

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

Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,143,000. This is 10.1 percent (±2.2%) above the revised March rate of 1,038,000 and is 6.4 percent (±2.1%) above the April 2014 estimate of 1,074,000.

Single-family authorizations in April were at a rate of 666,000; this is 3.7 percent (±0.9%) above the revised March figure of 642,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 444,000 in April. [link to report]

Here is the complete historical series, which dates from 1960. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 3-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.