Recent Updates
- US: Public Debt (Feb), Mfrs' Shipments Inventories & Orders (Jan), Productivity & Costs with Revisions (Q4)
- Global Sector PMIs (Feb)
- Canada: Labor Productivity & Unit Labor Cost (Q4)
- Philippines: Int'l Reserves & Foreign Currency Liquidity (Jan)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Rise Just 9,000
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose modestly by 9,000 to 745,000 in the week ended February 27...
U.S. Productivity's Decline Lessened in Q4'20; Reverses Q3 Increase
Revisions to nonfarm business sector productivity indicated a 4.2% decline during Q4'20...
EMU Unemployment Rate Steadies in January
The overall EMU unemployment rate was steady in January, off peak, but still elevated...
U.S. ADP Nonfarm Private Payroll Increase Disappoints in February
Job market strength moderated last month....
U.S. ISM Services Index Weakens in February
The ISM Composite Index of Services Activity declined to 55.3 during February...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller December 20, 2005
Housing starts surged 5.3% m/m in November. The gain to 2.123M units reversed most of the prior month's decline and beat Consensus expectations for a decline to 2.015M starts.
A 4.8% gain in single-family starts returned the level to its record height of 1.808M achieved this past February. The gain was most pronounced in the West where starts rose 14.4% (25.8% y/y) and in the Midwest where starts rose 7.5% (22.5% y/y). In the South single family starts rose just 0.8% (22.1% y/y) but in the Northeast single family starts fell for the fourth month in the last five (+5.8% y/y).
Multi family starts recovered about one third of the prior month's skid with a 7.9% m/m gain and building permits recovered about half of the prior month's 5.2% drop as single family permits inched up just 0.2% (7.7% y/y).
Housing Starts (000s, AR) | Nov | Oct | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 2,123 | 2,017 | 17.5% | 1,950 | 1,854 | 1,7 10 |
Single-family | 1,808 | 1,725 | 21.8% | 1,604 | 1,505 | 1,363 |
Multi-family | 315 | 292 | -2.5% | 345 | 349 | 347 |
Building Permits | 2,155 | 2,103 | 3.0% | 2,058 | 1,8 88 | 1,749 |