kebu77

Worst Housing Number in Decades: What Is the Wall Street Media Smoking?

"In what universe do you think that a seasonally adjusted number of housing starts being 27% of what they were four years ago is good economic news, Mr. Wrixon?"

Actually, it could be. Builders could go to 0.0% I suppose but then would be OOB. Builders are "chasing" completions, which over the last two years have exceeded new-starts/permits by around 150-200k per month, with some months as high as 300k. You know the new-house mkt. has hit bottom, more or less, when completions fall more in line with new-starts/permits. We are at least several months off from this - - doesn't matter whether you do SA or NSA on this, result is roughly the same - - too many new completions competing with the current (recent completions and existing) housing inventory.