Housing construction is down, way down: [Thanks L!]
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Initial construction of U.S. homes fell to a fresh 17-year low in September, according to a government report released Friday.
Privately owned housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000 in September, according to the Commerce Department. The rate was down 6.3% from August’s revised reading of 872,000 and 31.1% lower than September 2007.
Economists were expecting housing starts to decline to 870,000, according to consensus estimates compiled by Briefing.com.
Housing starts have fallen nearly two-thirds from their peak of 2.3 million in January 2006, and were at the lowest annual pace since January 1991.
"This is bad news for anyone who works in the housing industry, bad news for the economy as a whole, and the decline in housing activity just continues to deepen," said Mike Larson, an analyst for Weiss Research. "This is one of the worst downturns in the housing market in the history of our country."
I disagree that this is bad news. The housing market is suffering from a huge oversupply- which drives prices down. You cannot cure an oversupply by dumping more product on a glutted market. Yes, this will hurt in terms of jobs in the housing industry, but clearly we as a nation are too dependent on housing as a source of employment. If we want a stronger economy, we are going to have to adjust to this reality and shift jobs away from housing and into other sectors.
UK House Bubble
Bubble Meter
Mish's Global Economic Analysis
Ohio Fraudclosure
Northern Virginia Housing Bubble Fallout
Breaking News Relevant Articles© Copyright 2012 Housing Doom | Copyright© 2011, AuthentiCraft, Inc.
I think he means “bad” as in it’s difficult to bury your head in the sand when the waves keep washing the sand away. Many mainstream media articles are still using phrases like “there are concerns the US might be heading towards a recession”, and news like this makes it harder to ignore reality.
Does anyone have numbers on commercial office space being built? We have entire business parks where I live completely empty (and have been for 2+ years), but they’re building yet another office complex nearby. I’m wondering how much that is happening elsewhere.
Linenoise, I don’t have any numbers but I do know they keep on building. I just moved from LV where they are going up like mad (office). Retail has slowed with tons of empty spaces. If you looked at the asking rates you would think there’s no slowdown at all. From my experiences in LV it’s just commercial flipping. And we know what destruction that brought to the housing sector. Igor says concerned
I included the housing starts / building permits report on my blog as well and share the same conclusion.
Unfortunately, plenty of “housing industry” jobs will be lost in the short term. At this point, there are no easy answers. However, we will continue to toil in this economic disaster until, amongst other things, the housing market shows signs of a correction. Simple supply and demand. Dipping housing starts will undoubtedly help to start decreasing the supplies thus helping to diminish downward pressures on pricing.
Nonetheless, I too suggest, in the bigger picture, that this is a bit of good news helping to point housing in the right direction.