· In October, housing starts more than retraced the downwardly revised 4.9%  September gain and fell 14.6% to the lowest level since July 2000. The latest result fell well short of Consensus expectations for 1.68M starts.

· At 1.486M units, the October figure pulled the year-to-date average to 1.863 starts and 10.2% below the first ten months of 2005.

· Single-family starts in October fell 15.9% to 1.177M, also the lowest level since July 2000. The year-to-date average level of single family starts fell 11.5% from 2005. Multi family starts in addition were down by 9.1% m/m.

· By region, single family housing starts were weakest down South and fell 24.8% (-32.4% y/y). Starts also fell 9.1% (-32.9% y/y) out West, were 7.3% (-33.1% y/y) lower in the Midwest but in the Northeast single family starts rose 10.9% (-22.2% y/y).

· Building permits fell 6.3% after a revised 5.2% September drop. The ninth monthly decline this year was to the lowest level since 1997. Permits to start single family homes fell 3.8% (-31.7% y/y), the lowest since 2000.

· What Do Financial Asset Prices Say About the Housing Market? from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System can be found here. 

Housing Starts (000s, AR)

October

September

Y/Y

2003

Total

1,486

1,740

-27.4%

1,854

  Single-family

1,177

1,400

-31.8%

1,505

  Multi-family

309

340

-3.4%

349

Building Permits

1,535

1,638

-28.0%

1,888