SF Housing Starts Fall 7%

Single-family housing starts fell 7% in October even though builders took out an unusually high number of housing permits.The Commerce Department reported that single-family starts fell from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.45 million in September to 1.35 million in October. The National Association of Home Builders expected starts to decline, but not by this much, according to NAHB economist Michael Carliner. He pointed out that construction permits are at very high levels for this phase of the housing cycle and there is a very large inventory of unused permits. "The permit number says things are doing just fine," Mr. Carliner said, suggesting that single-family starts will "remain fairly strong." Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported that multifamily starts plunged from 322,000 in September to 221,000 in October. The department can be found online at http://www.doc.gov.