With surging homebuilder sentiment, we suspect the disappointing plunge in Housing Starts (-2.8% vs +0.8% exp) will surprise a few but there is hope... as Building Permits rose 4.8% (vs 0.9% expectations) on the back of an 8% surge in multi-family / rental units. This is the highest level fo Permits since June 2008 (but still over 50% below peak permits levels in 2005). The only region with any increase in starts was the South.
Permits beat but Starts miss...
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Fool me once...or twice... but three times...?
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The breakdown: Permits jumped entirely due to an 8% surge in rental akak multi-family units, led by the West where there was a 22% jump in permits.
On the other hand, single-family dropped even as single-family units posted a small pick up.
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The one caveat: single-family units declined in all regions except the South, where starts jumped by 10%
Finally, no matter what the permits or starts data indicates, something curious is that the level of actual housing completions for single-family houses dropped 7.4% to 585K. This was the lowest monthly print in all of 2014! It appears once started, builders - super confident as they may be - are taking their good time to complete the project.
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