Real Estate
US housing starts drop 5.2% in September as completions run 14% below last year
Builders broke ground at a 1.221 million annual pace, a day after builder confidence fell to its lowest since 2012.
HedgeWeekly News Desk ·
Construction started on privately owned US homes at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.221 million in September, 5.2% below the revised August pace and 7.4% lower than a year earlier, the Census Bureau said on Tuesday. Single-family starts fell 4.6% to an 859,000 rate.
Building permits, which signal future construction, held almost flat at a 1.40 million rate, down 0.2% from August and 3.0% from September 2025. Single-family permits fell 4.0% to 845,000. Completions rose 2.2% over the month to 1.192 million but were 14.0% lower than a year earlier.
The headline drop comes with a caveat. The Census Bureau's 90% margin of error on the monthly change in starts is plus or minus 11.8%, and on the annual change plus or minus 11.5%, so neither decline is statistically significant on its own. The 14% annual fall in completions does fall outside its margin of error.
Why it matters: the report lines up with Monday's survey data, when the NAHB/Wells Fargo builder index fell three points to 29, its lowest since June 2012, and below the 31 economists had expected. Freddie Mac's average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 7.40% last week, the highest in nearly three years. For investors in homebuilders, building-products suppliers and mortgage lenders, the weaker single-family permit count is the figure to watch, because it points to how much new building is in the pipeline for the months ahead.