There still aren’t enough homes being built. That is the bad news for first-time property buyers in Tuesday’s U.S. housing data, showing construction starts increased at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.62 million in August.
The bigger problem? Single-family home starts fell in August for a second month in a row to a yearly rate of 1.05 million, with the monthly boost driven by 632,000 new multifamily construction starts on buildings with five units or more, according to U.S. Census data.For context, the past decade saw an average 1.07 million housing starts yearly , or well below the 1.73 million annual average for the past 20 years.
“In our view, the housing market outlook is still positive, but hinges on an easing of supply bottlenecks,” including in lumber LB00, +0.45% and with labor shortages, Uruci’s team wrote. The boom has been partly due to low 3% mortgage rates and the rise of remote work, but also to a longstanding lack of enough new construction. TomVest’s Nima Wedlake pointed out that some 12.3 million American households were formed from January 2012 to July 2021, while only 7 million new single-family homes were built in the same stretch.Shares of home builders D.R. Horton Inc. DHI, -0.17%, Lennar Corp LEN, -0.54%. and NVR Inc. NVR, -0.03% ended lower on Tuesday, while U.S.