U.S. Housing Starts Dropped 9.4% in September
October 17 2019 - 9:00AM
Dow Jones News
By Harriet Torry and Kate Davidson
Home building in the U.S. fell last month, showing that rising
labor and material costs continue to hamper home construction.
Housing starts, a measure of new-home construction, fell 9.4% in
September from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate
of 1.256 million, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Residential building permits, which can signal how much
construction is in the pipeline, dropped 2.7% from August to an
annual pace of 1.387 million.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a
3.2% drop in housing starts and a 6.3% decline for permits last
month.
Housing-starts data are volatile from month to month and can be
subject to large revisions. September's 9.4% decline for starts
came with a margin of error of 9.4 percentage points.
Starts were up 1.6% from September last year and building
permits were up 7.7% from the same month in 2018.
Despite historically low mortgage rates and rising wages, the
housing sector has been strained by low inventory of affordable
homes propelled by rising construction costs and lack of land.
Borrowing costs ticked up in September to just above 3.7% but
have since receded. Average rates for 30-year mortgages fell to
3.57% last week, according to Freddie Mac.
At the same time, the National Association of Home Builders
reported this week that builder confidence in the market for new
single-family homes climbed in October to its highest level since
February 2018.
The Commerce report can be found at
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 17, 2019 08:45 ET (12:45 GMT)
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