The serial extrapolators will be pleased… and the talking heads will now proclaim this as clear evidence that the cold-weather dysphoria has abated and its blue skies for real estate from here… Housing Permits back over 1 million homes SAAR (and biggest jump in a year) to new 6 year highs and Housing Starts back above 1 million SAAR near last year’s highs. However, there is one major caveat - almost the entire surge was led by an almost 40% spike in multi-family units as the ‘rental nation’ grows ever stronger. Multi-family accounted for almost 30% of all starts – the highest in over 4 years as single-family starts rose a dismal 0.8%. Not exactly the “but housing inventories are so low and they must builder more homes” kind of growth that the headlines will crow about…
Starts “fixed”
Permits “fixed”
As multi-family starts spike almost 40%…
