Housing permits, starts hit record low
Real estate brief
By Inman News, Tuesday, December 16, 2008.New-home construction activity slowed to a record low in November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau reported today.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts plunged 47 percent year-over-year in November, and fell 18.9 percent compared to the October 2008 rate. The rate is a projection of a monthly total over a 12-month period, adjusted to account for typical seasonal fluctuations in construction activity.
And the rate of building-permit authorizations tumbled 48.1 percent year-over-year in November and 15.6 percent compared to October.
Statistics in both categories marked a record low in nearly 50 years of government tracking.
Total housing starts hit an annual adjusted rate of 625,000 in November, with single-family starts at 441,000. Total building-permit authorizations fell to a rate of 616,000 in November, with 412,000 single-family permit authorizations.
***
What's your opinion? Leave your comments below or send a letter to the editor.
All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.

You must login or register to post a comment.
Submitted by Gina Gardner on December 16, 2008 - 12:37pm.
Good. It's about time things backed off.
It was the irresponsible county commissions, city planners, etc.(like those in Reno and San Diego), who in their greed for property tax revenue and developer handouts let homeowners down. Dumping ever more new homes out there and ultimately screwing existing owners and slamming values. Smarter communities (like Seattle) avoided a lot of the mayhem by controlling their growth.
Submitted by Ben Ruiz on December 16, 2008 - 5:39pm.
Forget about getting a construction loan. Existing const loans were frozen and building has come to a complete stop. It's follow the gov't leader............