Building Permits and Housing Starts Rebound in November

The Commerce Department released November New Residential Construction: Building Permits, Housing Starts, and Housing Completions data this morning.

Housing Starts data estimates how much new residential real estate construction occurred in the previous month. New construction means digging has begun. Adding rooms or renovating old ones does not count, the builder must be constructing a new home (can be on old foundation if re-building). Although the report offers up single family housing, 2-4 unit housing, and 5 unit and above housing data, single family housing is by far the most important as it accounts for the majority of total home building.

Building Permits data provides an estimate on the number of homes planning on being built. It tracks how much future construction activity we can expect to take place. This data is a part of Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators.

Here is quick recap…..

NOV HOUSING STARTS +8.9 PCT VS OCT -10.1 PCT (PREV -10.6 PCT)
HOUSING STARTS 574,000 UNIT RATE (CONSENSUS 580,000) VS OCT 527,000 (PREV 529,000)
NOV HOUSING STARTS LARGEST RISE SINCE MAY 2009 (+15.0 PCT)

BUILDING PERMITS +6.0 PCT VS OCT -4.2 PCT (PREV -4.2 PCT)
PERMITS 584,000 UNIT RATE (CONSENSUS 570,000) VS OCT 551,000 (PREV 551,000)
BUILDING PERMITS HIGHEST SINCE NOV 2008 (630,000)

HOUSING COMPLETIONS +8.7 PCT TO 810,000 UNIT RATE VS OCT 745,000

Charts and color to follow…

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