Housing Starts Indicating a Slowing Trend

For the third consecutive straight month with the May report it shows signs a future shortage of houses. A recent report from the Commerce Department indicated housing starts which had a 2.7 monthly decline in April and a 7.7 drop in March show a 5.5% drop in May. Although home construction is up 3.2% year to date. News reports indicate optimism in sales from home builders, yet the overall number of homes for sale has shown a steady decline over the last two years. Another major real estate indicator is building permits. That number has drop precipitously 5% to just over 1 million nationwide. We don’t have the local numbers in Los Angeles County, but found that the Wells Fargo builder sentiment index is 67. This is a positive number as any reading above 50 is a positive number and that number has been well above 50 for the last nine months.

The Builders Index Or Housing Starts was down 1.09M in March vs. 1.17M expected

U.S. housing starts fell more than expected in March. The housing permits applications are also at a year low. This is a US number and not an Antelope Valley number, but is shows a slowing in housing being built. This may be different in the Antelope Valley for the future due to the new Stealth Bomber building plans at Northrop Grumman’s Plant 42. This does show a slow done in the first quarter housing starts for the first half of 2016 nationwide. The overall groundbreaking decreased 8.8 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.09 million units. This is the lowest level since October according to the Commerce Department. Although, last months housing starts were revised up, but only slightly from 1.19 million from 1.18 million. The largest segment of the housing market is the single family and that dropped almost 10 percent or 9.2 percent. This is the lowest national number since last fall. Again this is a national number and maybe different in Los Angeles County, but it is a reflection of the new housing market for 2016