Housing Starts, Building Permits Plunged In December… And It’s About To Get Worse

US Housing Starts and Building Permits both declined in December (-1.4% MoM and -1.6% MoM respectively) with starts better than expected but forward-looking permits below expectations. This is the 3rd straight month of declines in permits and 4th straight drop in starts…

Source: Bloomberg

Total Starts and Permits hit new cycle lows, back to the 2020 COVID lockdown levels…

Source: Bloomberg

Single-family Building Permits tumbled for the 10th straight month (while multi-family starts rebounded notably in December). The pictyure was the opposite for Housing starts where single-family starts soared 11.3% MoM while multi-family starts plunged 18.9% MoM…

Source: Bloomberg

Judging by homebuilder sentiment, building permits are not bouncing back anytime soon…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, to summarize, in 2022, about 1 million one-family houses were started, down 10.6% from 2021.

Is that what Jay Powell wants? More scarcity, less supply?