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Overall
construction spending in the United States increased by 0.8 percent during October, to a seasonally adjusted and annualized rate (SAAR) of $798.5 billion. All categories except public construction posted increases; the private residential category exhibited the largest advance in both absolute and percentage terms.
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Total
housing starts fell by 0.3 percent in October, to 628,000 units (SAAR), but were up 16.5 percent over year-earlier levels. Single-family starts rose by 3.9 percent, to 430,000 units in October; interestingly, single-family starts are 0.9 percent lower than a year ago.
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New-home sales also advanced in October, by 1.3 percent to 307,000 (SAAR). The median price of new homes sold dropped by 0.5 percent, however, to $212,300. Although single-unit starts rose more quickly than sales (respectively, 16,000 versus 4,000), the three-month average starts-to-sales ratio ticked down to 1.4.
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Single-unit completions jumped by 7.1 percent, but the inventory of new single-family homes remained unchanged in absolute terms while months of inventory shrank by 0.1 month. Inventory stood at 162,000 units and 6.1 months. Once again, the number of new homes for sale was its lowest since such records began in January 1963.
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Existing home sales fared a little better than their new-home counterparts in October, rising by 70,000 units (SAAR) or 1.4 percent. The share of total sales comprised of new homes remained stable at 5.8 percent.
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With the median price of existing homes sold falling by $3,800 (2.3 percent), to $161,600,
housing affordability jumped to a new record high in October. This followed on the heels of slight decreases in the not seasonally adjusted 10- and 20-city S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices during September (both roughly -0.5 percent).
“Home prices drifted lower in September and the third quarter,” said
David Blitzer, chair of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. “The National Index was down 3.9 percent versus the third quarter of 2010 and up only 0.1 percent from the previous quarter. Three cities posted new index lows in September 2011: Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix. Seventeen of the 20 cities and both Composites were down for the month. Over the last year home prices in most cities drifted lower. The plunging collapse of prices seen in 2007-2009 seems to be behind us. Any chance for a sustained recovery will probably need a stronger economy.
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“Detroit and Washington DC posted positive annual rates of change and also saw an improvement in these rates compared to August. Only New York, Portland and Washington DC posted positive monthly returns versus August. It is a bit disturbing that we saw three cities post new crisis lows. For the prior three or four months, only Las Vegas was weakening each month. Now Atlanta and Phoenix have fallen to new lows too. On a monthly basis, Atlanta actually posted a record low rate of -5.9 percent in September over August. The markets are fairly thin, and the relative lack of closed transactions might be exacerbating the downside. The relative good news is that 14 cities saw improvements in their annual rates of change, versus the six that weakened.”
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