The headline residential building permits declined and construction completions improved. But we keep our eyes on the rolling averages because of the significant monthly fluctuations which improved.

Analyst Opinion of Residential Building

The backward revisions this month were moderately upward.The nature of this industry normally has large variations from month to month (mostly due to weather) so the rolling averages are the best way to view this series – and it shows permits rate of growth improved, and completion rate of growth improved.

We consider this a modestly stronger report than last month.

Looking at residential construction employment, the year-over-year growth of employment is almost correlating with housing starts.

 

The unadjusted rate of annual growth for building permits in the last 12 months has been around 10% – it is +2.0 % this month.

Unadjusted Construction completions are well above permits – but this is a seasonal issue. However, there has been a general slowing trend for permits and completions…

Unadjusted 3-month rolling averages for permits (comparing the current averages to the averages one year ago) is +7.1 % (permits) and +4.9 % (construction completions):

3 month Rolling Average for Year-over-Year Growth Unadjusted Data

  Building Permits Construction Completions Current Movement decelerating decelerating

 

Econintersect Analysis:

Unadjusted Building permits growth decelerated 4.3 % month-over-month, and is up 2.0 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted Single family building permits is up 1.8 % year-over-year.

Unadjusted Construction completions accelerated 11.6 % month-over-month, up 7.8 % year-over-year.

US Census Headlines:

building permits down 0.1 % month-over-month, up 2.8 % year-over-year

construction completions up 2.2 % month-over-month, down 7.4 % year-over-year.

the market expected (from Bloomberg / Econoday):

Annual Rates Consensus Range Consensus Actual Housing Starts 1.230 M to 1.320 M 1.280 M 1.192 M Housing Permits 1.265 M to 1.330 M 1.300 M

1.302 M

Note that Econintersect analysis herein is based on UNADJUSTED data – not the headline seasonally adjusted data.