October Housing Starts: Near Record Number of Multi-Family Housing Units Under Construction

Housing Starts Increased to 1.372 million Annual Rate in October

Housing Starts Increased to 1.372 million Annual Rate in October

From the Census Bureau: Permits, Starts and Completions

Housing Starts:
Privately‐owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,372,000. This is 1.9 percent above the revised September estimate of 1,346,000, but is 4.2 percent below the October 2022 rate of 1,432,000. Single‐family housing starts in October were at a rate of 970,000; this is 0.2 percent above the revised September figure of 968,000. The October rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 382,000.

Building Permits:
Privately‐owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,487,000. This is 1.1 percent above the revised September rate of 1,471,000, but is 4.4 percent below the October 2022 rate of 1,555,000. Single‐family authorizations in October were at a rate of 968,000; this is 0.5 percent above the revised September figure of 963,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 469,000 in October.
emphasis added

The first graph shows single and multi-family housing starts since 2000 (including housing bubble).

Multi-family starts (blue, 2+ units) increased in October compared to September.   Multi-family starts were down 30.0% year-over-year in October. Single-family starts (red) increased in October and were up 13.1% year-over-year.

Note that the weakness in 2022 and early 2023 had been in single family starts (red), however the weakness has moved to multi-family now while single family has bounced back somewhat from the bottom.

The second graph shows single and multi-family starts since 1968. This shows the huge collapse following the housing bubble, and then the eventual recovery - and the recent collapse in single-family starts.

Total housing starts in October were above expectations and starts in August and September were revised up, combined.

The third graph shows the month-to-month comparison for total starts between 2022 (blue) and 2023 (red).

Total starts were down 4.2% in October compared to October 2022.  And starts year-to-date are down 11.3% compared to last year.

Starts have been down year-over-year for 16 of the last 18 months (May and July 2023 were the exceptions), and total starts will be down this year - although the year-over-year comparisons are somewhat easier in Q4.

Near Record Number of Multi-Family Housing Units Under Construction

The fourth graph shows housing starts under construction, Seasonally Adjusted (SA).