Steel Markets
June 17, 2015
Housing Starts, Permits and Builder Confidence
Written by Peter Wright
The surprisingly strong housing starts result for April was not repeated in May but the three month moving average did increase. Total starts were 1,036,000 down from 1,165,000 in April. This is an example of why we always focus on three month moving averages (3MMA) at SMU and don’t get too excited or depressed by a single months result. On that basis, single family at 674,000 was up by 4.1 percent month over month and up by 5.0 percent year over year. Multi-family was up by 5.5 percent both m/m and y/y.
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. This projection is probably optimistic as the trajectory for the last two years does not get us to 1.6 million, more like 1.3 million.
