New Residential Building Permits: 1.416M in December

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for December new residential building permits. The latest reading of 1.416M was a decrease from 1.474M in November and below the Investing.com forecast of 1.468M.

Here is the opening of this morning's monthly report, including a note regarding revisions:

Building Permits

Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in December were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,416,000. This is 3.9 percent (±1.6 percent) below the revised November rate of 1,474,000, but is 5.8 percent (±1.1 percent) above the December 2018 rate of 1,339,000. Single‐family authorizations in December were at a rate of 916,000; this is 0.5 percent (±1.3 percent)* below the revised November figure of 921,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 458,000 in December.

An estimated 1,368,800 housing units were authorized by building permits in 2019. This is 3.9 percent (±0.6%) above the 2018 figure of 1,317,900. [link to report]

Here is the complete historical series, which dates from 1960. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.

 

Here is the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show substantial growth in the US population since 1960. Here is a chart of housing starts as a percent of the population. We've added a linear regression through the monthly data to highlight the trend.

 

A Footnote on Volatility

The extreme volatility of this monthly indicator is the rationale for paying more attention to its 6-month moving average than to its noisy monthly change. Over the complete data series, the absolute MoM average percent change is 4.4%. The MoM range minimum is -24.0% and the maximum is 33.9%.

For visual confirmation of the volatility, here is a snapshot of the monthly percent change since 1990.