Steel Markets
May 19, 2015
Housing Starts, Permits and Builder Confidence
Written by Peter Wright
Housing starts surprised on the upside in April, possibly as a result of projects delayed by bad weather in the Northeast and Midwest picked up the pace. Total starts were 1,135,000 up from 944,000 in March. Single family were up by 16 percent and multifamily by 27 percent. At SMU we prefer to work with three month averages (3MMA) and not to get too excited or depressed by a single months result. On that basis, single family at 993,000 were up by only 2 percent and multifamily at 339,000 were up by 3 percent. The Census department results are seasonally adjusted and the monthly numbers are annualized. Figure 1 shows the 3MMA of total housing starts projected through 2018.
