September was another month in which US single-family housing starts stagnated, and in fact declined when it comes to permits, only to see a strong rebound in both permits and starts when it comes to multi-family, aka rental housing.
At the top line, September housing starts rebounded from last month's revised drop to 957K, rising just above the 1,008K expected to 1,017K, while permits also rebounded from the August print of 1,003K, if missing expectations of 1,030K printing at 1,018K.
As for the breakdown:housing starts fof single family housing were essentially unchanged at 646K from last month's 638K, while rental housing starts rebounded strongly from 298K to 353K as America continues its conversion to a house-renter nation:
As for permits, single-family housing permits decline for yet another month, dropping from 627K to 62$K, which was the lowest print since May, however offseting this contraction was another expected bounce in multi-family, i.e., rental, construction, which rose to 369K from last month's drop to 345K.
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All of which makes sense: increasingly only those who can afford the cash up can purchase single-family houses, which is also why builders are increasingly not building this bedrock of the US economy. For everyone else: we hope you can at least afford your monthly payment.
Source: Census [4] [4]
