Housing Starts: No Good News
The Census Bureau had a little difficulty posting its full PDF release on housing starts this morning. This month’s report had not replaced last month’s. When it’s up you should be able to find it at:
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf
Nonetheless a capsule summary disclosed 698,000 starts in February. Take a look at the chart and you’ll see that anything around 700,000 is better than the 600,000 level that has prevailed for over a year. Then take a look at where we are, where we were and where we need to go and you’ll have a feel for the problem.
Housing Starts
(Click on chart to enlarge)
(Recessions shaded)
Tomorrow we’ll look at the February report for existing-home sales and on Friday we’ll look at new-home sales. Let’s hope for better news.
(To be fully informed visit http://www.beyourowneconomist.com/)
© 2012 Michael B. Lehmann
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