WASHINGTON – Housing starts nationwide fell 6.1 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.38 million units per year from the revised June rate of 1.41 million, according to a joint report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The decline was sharper than predicted in a Bloomberg News survey of 75 economists, whose mean forecast called for housing starts to fall to 1.4 million units per year from the original June estimate of 1.47 million.
New construction retreated last month in every region but the South. In the Northeast, housing starts fell 1.3 percent in July to a rate of 176,000 units per year.
Compared with the revised July 2006 nationwide rate of 1.75 million units per year, housing starts fell 20.9 percent, as new construction plunged in every region but the Northeast, which registered a 6.1-percent increase over the year-ago level.
In addition to the drop in starts, permits issued for privately owned housing fell 2.8 percent in July compared with June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.37 million – a 10-year low, Bloomberg News said.
Compared with the revised July 2006 rate of 1.77 million units per year, new permits declined in every region, falling 22.6 percent nationwide. In the Northeast, permits fell 1.3 percent in July to a rate of 176,000 units per year, 12.5 percent below the year-ago level.
“Even the most ambitious homebuilders will think twice about initiating new projects,” Lindsey Piegza, an analyst at FTN Financial in New York, told Bloomberg News. “Falling prices, sluggish demand, and dwindling mortgage credit availability will continue to weigh heavily on residential construction.”
Additional information, including the full New Residential Construction report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is available at www.census.gov/const/newresconst.
