Housing Starts Decline in October

Nationwide housing production fell 10.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000 units in October, according to the latest reports from the U.S. Commerce Department.

“As of October, the deadline for starting a home that could be completed in time for purchasers to take advantage of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit had come and gone, and builders had no clear sign of whether Congress would extend the credit beyond the end of November,” says Joe Robson, chairperson of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. “However, now that Congress has wisely moved to extend the tax credit into next year and expand its eligibility to more buyers, we hope and expect that this will have a substantial stimulative effect on home sales and help keep the housing market solidly on the road to recovery.”

Single-family housing starts declined 6.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000 units, the slowest pace since May of this year. Meanwhile, multifamily housing starts fell by a dramatic 34.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of just 53,000 units–the slowest pace on record.

Combined starts activity fell across the board in October, with the Northeast posting an 18.8 percent decline, the Midwest a 10.6 percent decline, the South a 9.6 percent decline and the West an 8.5 percent decline, respectively.


DWM
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