Great News! Housing Starts and Permits Plummet!
Housing starts fell 0.6% in February and permits for new construction plunged 7.8% to the lowest level in 16 years. The housing report showed February starts were 28.4% less than the level of February 2007.
Given that the enormous overhang in inventory is a huge part of the problem, this is, perversely good news.
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New Home Starts
Building Permits
Continuing to add to the supply in this environment would be sheer madness.
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Source:
Housing Starts – Single-Family Units Post Largest Cyclical Decline on Record
Asha G. Bangalore
Northern Trust
http://tinyurl.com/3xlfw8
Housing Starts Slip While Permits Drop Sharply
JEFF BATER and BRIAN BLACKSTONE
WSJ, March 19, 2008; Page A2
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120584297980744915.html
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 | 10:00 AM | Permalink
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Comments
I don't think this is all just good business sense on their part. These are the same builders who bought land and built spec homes like there was no tomorrow, until their drunken spree ended.
They are all heavily leveraged and many on the brink of bankruptcy. They must get credit to build more and in the current market there is no one to give them credit to continue building.
Posted by: edhopper | Mar 19, 2008 10:32:56 AM
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