Residential building permits were a mixed bag. Although the amount of permits was higher than completions this month – the amount of permits continues to trend down.

The unadjusted rate of annual growth for building permits in the last 12 months has declined from a channel between 25% and 40% to a channel under 10% growth. This month was a 2.7% expansion year-over-year.

Unadjusted 3 month rolling averages for permits (comparing the current averages to the averages one year ago) show that construction completions are clearly higher than permits. This means shortly there should be a deceleration of construction completions.

3 month Rolling Average for Year-over-Year Growth Unadjusted Data

  Building Permits Construction Completions Current Movement  decelerating accelerating

Unadjusted 3 Month Rolling Average of Year-over-Year Growth – Building Permit (blue line) and Construction Completions (red line)

Econintersect Analysis:

Building permits growth decelerated 6.4% month-over-month, and is up 2.7% year-over-year. 

Whenever permits rate of growth is lower than completions – this industry is decelerating (graph above blue line) tells the real story.

Single family building permits expanded 6.3% year-over-year.

Construction completions accelerated 9.5% month-over-month, up 33.1% year-over-year.

US Census Headlines:

building permits up 4.8% month-over-month, up 1.2% year-over-year

construction completions down 8.8% month-over-month, up 8.1% year-over-year.

the market expected:

Annual Rates  Consensus Range Consensus  Actual  Housing Starts  0.979 M to 1.100 M  1.028 M 1.009 M Housing Permits 1.005 M to 1.105 M 1.035 M 1.080 M