US April housing starts 1.465m vs 1.410m expected
- Prior was 1.502m
- Building permits 1.442m vs 1.385m expected
- Prior 1.363m
For background, the New Residential Construction report, published jointly by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is the most widely watched gauge of U.S. homebuilding activity. Released monthly at 8:30 a.m. ET (typically around the 17th business day of the month, with a roughly six-week lag), it covers three series: building permits, housing starts, and housing completions. A “start" is recorded when excavation begins for a building’s footings or foundation. Markets focus particularly on the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of total starts and the single-family component, with multifamily (five-plus units) tracked separately given its higher volatility. Permits are treated as a leading indicator of future starts, while completions feed into housing supply estimates. The data are reported with notably wide confidence intervals, often ±10–15 percentage points on monthly changes, so analysts focus on trends rather than single readings, and on the regional breakdown across the four Census regions.
This article was written by Giuseppe Dellamotta at investinglive.com.