I’m off to give my presentation, but before I go, here is a quick chart on Single Family Housing Starts, which disappointed:
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click for bigger chart
Source: Census Bureau
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Thanks, RM!
Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Overall household indebtedness is up from $7 trillion to almost $10 trillion since 2000. On this sum, we estimate, the American consumer has an annual interest bill of more than $500 billion; a sum, by the way, that vastly exceeds his current income growth." —Kurt Richebacher
"The Greek offer is not sufficient and they have to go away to come up with a revised plan," said a spokesman for the German Finance Ministry. The Greeks must first have a plan that satisfies the Germans which this comment states they clearly don't yet and then the Greek Parliament will vote on it this weekend. This said, whatever package gets voted on in Greece is basically an up or down vote on euro membership so we are entering another uncertain weekend for global markets. A failed vote will likely lead to a hard default which may be what...
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November 18th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Now invetory will burn off even quicker with no new supply!
November 18th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Not sure why anyone is surprised by this…
November 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Shouldn’t the chart have some sort of normalization to total population? Wouldn’t you expect more housing starts with a population of 300MM than a population of 200MM? That makes today’s numbers look even worse…
November 18th, 2009 at 10:15 am
The Bad News – Housing starts fall over 10%
The Good News – Hey its only 63,000 houses per year!!!
November 18th, 2009 at 10:41 am
NHAB not only told us this yesterday but even revised down their own “poll” from the previous month.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Time for Art Cashin to retire:
““[Housing] starts were down very sharply, but that might be weather-related because permits were only down slightly and if you’re a contractor and you’re having a rainy week, you might want to hold off on building a new home so you don’t get the added cost of doing it,” Cashin told CNBC.
“So you have to look under the headlines to see if it’s perhaps weather-related.”
There are soooo many things wrong with that statement that you have to wonder, is it time for Arty to hang up his jacket?
November 18th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Come on, Art get’s a pass on that one, he bats about .862 so he wiffs a few.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Liesman this morning was perplexed with the big fall in housing starts after so many months of below average starts . “What are people living huddled in a one room apartment or something?”
Steve, the answer is no, but you are close. There are a lot of multi-generation homesteads out there and not much appetite to take on homeownership risks at the moment. Plus many second homes are being unloaded. And population growth is slowing. H1B visas down and workers going home.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Housing starts are also down because in some areas of the country it is cheaper to buy a REO home coming off forclosure than the cost of building a home from the ground up. For me, existing home sales is the true barometer.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hmmm… thousands and thousands of foreclosures, thousands of rental units empty, college kids graduating with record debts and no jobs, and credit tight for developers and buyers. In all seriousness, why are ANY houses being built right now?
HCF