Home Starts fall an alarming 17.6%
Everyone was up in arms about this,
yesterday. I think all of the reporters miss an important point (although I haven’t thought
this through, yet) - How is a lower number of home starts a "good" thing? There are
so many buyers waiting to buy, right now. Lowering the number of potential homes for sale
ain’t gonna help them much, now, is it? I mean, (one of the reasons) the Back Bay and South
End are so expensive is because there’s such a limited supply, and you can’t build
anymore.
Home Starts fall an alarming 17.6%
By Braden Keil
Construction of new homes in
the U.S. plunged an unexpected 17.6 percent in March, the largest drop in more than 14 years and
potentially a huge blow to the booming U.S. housing market.
The new Commerce
Department figures also showed permits for future groundbreaking activity for both single-family
and multi-family homes, an indicator of builder confidence, fell more than
expected.
The 1.837 million-unit seasonally adjusted rate is down from an upwardly
revised 2.229 million-unit pace in February, the Commerce Department said
yesterday.
Prior to the release of the numbers, Wall Street analysts had
forecast a much smaller slide of 4.8 percent in March.
Among the falling
numbers, the sharpest drop of 29.3 percent came from the Midwest, followed by declines of 18
percent in the South, and 12.7 percent in the Western states. The Northeast, meanwhile, fell a
relatively moderate 3.6 percent.
"This is a bit of a shocker," said
David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders.
Complete article:
title="">Home Starts fall an alarming 17.6% (nypost.com)
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