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…
“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
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.
800,000 houses is still a lot of effin’ houses…
Developers building fewer houses and creating less suburban sprawl is very very good news on so many levels.
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?
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?
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.