The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for October new residential building permits. The latest reading of 1.263M was a decrease from a revised 1.270M in September and above the Investing.com forecast of 1.260M.
Here is the opening of this morning’s monthly report:
Building Permits
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,263,000. This is 0.6 percent (±2.4 percent)* below the revised September rate of 1,270,000 and is 6.0 percent (±1.6 percent) below the October 2017 rate of 1,343,000. Single‐family authorizations in October were at a rate of 849,000; this is 0.6 percent (±2.2 percent)* below the revised September figure of 854,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 376,000 in October. [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.
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. Over the complete data series, the absolute MoM average percent change is 4.4%. The MoM range minimum is -24.0% and the maximum is 33.9%.
For visual confirmation of the volatility, here is a snapshot of the monthly percent change since 1990.
