Introduction
With this morning’s release of housing permits and starts for February, this series has finally been brought back up to date following the government shutdown. Let’s take a look, bearing in mind that interest rates turn first before sales, and sales turn before prices.
Overall starts and permits have increased slightly from their 2018 lows, but single-family permits matched their 12-month lows
To begin with, here is the graph from the Census Bureau comparing permits, starts, and completions:
You can ignore completions. Both permits and starts had a poor month, close to their 2018