April 18, 2006 — Builders started work last month on the smallest number of new houses in a year, as rising mortgage rates and record inventories of unsold homes discouraged new projects. Housing starts declined 7.8 percent in March to an annual rate of 1.96 million, from 2.126 million in February, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Building permits, a sign of future construction, fell 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 2.059 million from 2.179 million. “It’s clear that the housing market is cooling,” Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, in Holland, Pennsylvania, said before the report. “There are areas of the country where we are going to see pretty sharp declines in construction and in housing prices.”
U.S. Housing Starts Fall 7.8% in March [Bloomberg]