New Residential Housing Starts Up in November 2019

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for November new residential housing starts. The latest reading of 1.65M was above the Investing.com forecast of 1.345M and an increase from the previous month's revised 1.323M.

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

Housing Starts

Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in November were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,482,000. This is 1.4 percent (±1.4 percent)* above the revised October rate of 1,461,000 and is 11.1 percent (±1.8 percent) above the November 2018 rate of 1,334,000. Single‐family authorizations in November were at a rate of 918,000; this is 0.8 percent (±1.3 percent)* above the revised October figure of 911,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 524,000 in November. [link to report]

Here is the historical series for total privately-owned housing starts, which dates from 1959. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.

 

The Population-Adjusted Reality

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 1959. 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 6.3%. The MoM range minimum is -26.4% and the maximum is 29.3%.

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