US Housing Starts & Building Permits Plunge To COVID Lockdown Lows

Despite ugly consumer confidence and soaring mortgage rates, analysts expected a small rebound in housing starts and building permits in May (after April’s disappointing misses). They were wrong… again… as both Starts and Permits plunged MoM (-5.5% MoM and -3.8% MoM respectively)…

Source: Bloomberg

That was the third monthly drop in permits (more forward looking) in a row. Worse still, April Housing Starts were revised lower (from +5.7% to +4.1%), making this miss even worse.

This dragged the SAARs for starts and permits to their lowest since the trough of COVID…

Source: Bloomberg

With Multifamily starts falling back near COVID lockdown lows…

Single-Family 982K SAAR, down 4.8% from 1,031K and the first sub-million print since October 2023

Multi-Family 278K, down 13.7% from 322K and the lowest since March’s 245K (which was the lowest print since covid crash)

Source: Bloomberg

And multi-family permits cratering to their lowest since Oct 2018…

Single-Family permits 949K SAAR, down 2.9% from 977K

Multi-Family permits 382K SAAR, down 6.1% from 407K

And with rate-cut expectations holding near their lows, there is no sign of recovery in home-building yet…

Source: Bloomberg

It seems reality is starting to set in for homebuilders…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, where the f**k is the Biden administration finding their construction employment data? As housing starts plummet, jobs seem to keep growing to record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Will any rate-cut actually move the dial here?