Housing Starts Plummet

"The Commerce Department reported Friday that construction of new homes and apartments dropped 6.3 percent last month, a much bigger decline than the 1.6 percent decrease that had been expected. It pushed total production to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000 units. That’s the slowest pace since January 1991, a period when the country was in a recession and going through a similar painful housing correction." — NYT/AP

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This is great news. Lower starts means tighter inventory. I can't see how this is a bad thing for prices. Maybe a bad thing for builders sorry Centex.

Posted by: sebb at October 17, 2008 10:14 AM

Why is this a surprise to anyone? There's a glut of homes on the market, mortgages are harder to get, and nobody is sure about values. Why would anyone be building homes in this environment?

Posted by: BrooklynButler at October 17, 2008 10:27 AM

I assume this is a good time if you're looking to have some work done on your home. I wonder if the bidding process for jobs has reached a hyper-competitive level yet. Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of this?

Posted by: gigabutz at October 17, 2008 11:36 AM

Developers building fewer houses and creating less suburban sprawl is very very good news on so many levels.

Posted by: traditionalmod at October 17, 2008 12:12 PM

800,000 houses is still a lot of effin' houses...

Posted by: denton at October 17, 2008 4:40 PM

But even when prices go down enough so these "new" homes will be affordable, some of them are so ugly and crappily built that no one will want them anyway.

Posted by: i_heart_brooklyn at October 18, 2008 4:16 AM

« Checking In On 346 Coney Island Avenue Commercial Klutch: October Edition »

October 17, 2008

Housing Starts Plummet

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