Single family market expanding slowly; multifamily market shrinking rapidly

home

news index

single family market expanding slowly; multifamily market shrinking rapidly

August 21, 2009 - Jim Haughey

Featured in:

Join the Discussion!

Login to post a comment
Share
Print this Page
RSS Feed

Housing starts fell slightly in June with the reversal of the random May surge in multi family starts. Single family starts jumped early in the spring and will inch up to the 530,000 range by year end from the 357,000 cyclical low at the beginning of the year. Jobsite construction spending for new housing was steady in June after a more than three year decline. A 5% gain is forecast by yearend and then a 25% rise by the end of 2011.

The housing turnaround will be slow and rocky over the coming months. Confidence is still at a deep recession level and job losses, although slowing, will continue into the winter. Home foreclosures continue to rise and will dump several hundred thousand homes into the already bloated surplus of homes for sale. Nonetheless, it is the successes of the latest federal mortgage payment forgiveness program in preventing foreclosures that is a key driver in the single family housing recovery. There will be big price to pay later when many of these mortgages eventually default anyway but the initial impact is slimmer inventory and firmer house prices.

U.S. Residential Building Construction
(thousands of units)

	Monthly Figures (1) (latest actual values)		Annual Figures
	Monthly Figures (1) (latest actual values)		Actual			Forecast
	May-09	Jun-09	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Northeast starts (% change is period versus same period, previous year)	59	80	171	143	120	68	93	118
	-52.0%	-67.9%	-9.6%	-16.6%	-15.8%	-43.6%	36.4%	27.8%
Midwest	79	101	285	206	134	100	128	154
	-42.8%	-26.3%	-20.2%	-27.6%	-35.1%	-25.6%	28.3%	20.5%
South	276	280	912	676	425	277	329	419
	-43.9%	51.4%	-8.9%	-25.9%	-37.0%	-35.0%	19.0%	27.3%
West	137	126	444	317	196	129	156	203
	-37.2%	-39.1%	-19.4%	-28.5%	-38.3%	-34.2%	21.2%	30.3%
Total	551	587	1,811	1,342	900	573	706	895
	-43.3%	-45.5%	-12.6%	-25.9%	-32.9%	-36.4%	23.2%	26.8%
Total Single-family	409	482	1,474	1,036	616	451	577	736
	-39.8%	-26.4%	-14.3%	-29.7%	-40.5%	-26.7%	27.9%	27.5%
Total Multi-family	142	105	338	306	285	122	129	159
	-51.4%	-75.2%	-4.7%	-9.4%	-7.1%	-57.2%	5.5%	23.5%
New Home Sales (2)	346	384	1,049	769	481	372	478	641
	-32.0%	-21.3%	-18.0%	-26.7%	-37.4%	-22.6%	28.2%	34.3%
Manufactured Home Shipments	50	50	118	96	81	50	58	72
	-45.1%	-42.5%	-20.0%	-19.2%	-15.5%	-38.0%	16.3%	24.0%

(1) Monthly figures are seasonally adjusted at annual rates (SAAR figures).
(2) Based on a survey of homebuilders; excludes homes built under contract and multi-family rental units.
Manufactured home data is for April and May.
Forecasts and table: Reed Construction Data.

Member Comments

» View all comments (0 total comments)

Post Your Own Comments

» Not a member? Register now to become one. Otherwise, login to post your comments on this article.