• New home building declined m/m but remained higher y/y.

• Building permits eased.

Housing starts declined 5.1% (+2.8% y/y) during August to 1.416 million (SAAR) from 1.492 million during July, revised from 1.496 million. The decline left starts 12.4% below their January peak of 1.617 million. The Action Economics Forecast Survey expected 1.484 million starts in August.

A 22.7% decline (-15.2% y/y) in starts of multi-family units to 395,000 accounted for the drop in starts overall last month. Starts of single-family homes rose 4.1% last month (12.1% y/y) to 1.021 million after surging 10.1% in July to 981,000, revised from 940,000. The latest level was a six-month high, up 50.4% from the April low.

Building permits slipped 0.9% in August (-0.1% y/y) to 1.470 million from 1.483 million in July, revised from 1.258 million. Permits to build single-family homes increased 6.0% (15.6% y/y) to 1.036 million after improving 16.3% in July and 12.6% in June. Permits to build multi-family homes decreased 14.2% (-24.5% y/y) to 434,000 after rising 21.1% in July.

By region, housing starts in the Northeast fell by one-third (-47.0% y/y) to 89,000, the lowest level in three months. In the South, starts declined 17.7% (-2.6% y/y) to 699,000 and reversed half of July's increase. To the upside, in the Midwest housing starts rose 28.4% (40.5% y/y) to 267,000, the highest level since July 2006. Starts in the West improved 19.5% (19.9% y/y) to 361,000, a six-month high.

The housing starts and permits figures can be found in Haver's USECON database. The expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.