Courtesy of ZeroHedge. View original post here.
Submitted by Tyler Durden.
September was another month in which US single-family housing starts stagnated, and permits declined But there was a strong rebound in both permits and starts for multi-family housing, aka rental housing.
At the top line, September housing starts rebounded from last month's revised drop to 957K, rising just above the 1,008K expected to 1,017K, while permits also rebounded from the August print of 1,003K, although missing expectations of 1,030K and printing at 1,018K.
As for the breakdown: housing starts for single family housing were essentially unchanged at 646K from last month's 638K, while rental housing starts rebounded strongly from 298K to 353K as America continues its conversion to a house-renter nation:
As for permits, single-family housing permits decline for yet another month, dropping from 627K to 620K, which was the lowest print since May, however offseting this contraction was another expected bounce in multi-family, i.e., rental, construction, which rose to 369K from last month's drop to 345K.
This makes sense: increasingly, only those who can afford the cash up front can purchase single-family houses, which is also why builders are increasingly not building this bedrock of the US economy. For everyone else: we hope you can afford your monthly payment.
Source: Census
