The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have now published their findings for June new residential building permits.
The latest reading of 1.343M was well above the Investing.com forecast of 1.150M and is the highest since August 2007, when there were 1.321M permits.
Here is the opening of Friday morning's monthly report:
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,343,000. This is 7.4 percent (±1.2%) above the revised May rate of 1,250,000 and is 30.0 percent (±2.3%) above the June 2014 estimate of 1,033,000.
Single-family authorizations in June were at a rate of 687,000; this is 0.9 percent (±1.1%)* above the revised May figure of 681,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 621,000 in June. [link to report]
Here is the complete historical series, which dates from 1960. Because of the extreme volatility of the monthly data points, a 6-month moving average has been included.
Here is the data with a simple population adjustment. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show substantial growth in the US population since 1960. Here is a chart of housing starts as a percent of the population.
A Footnote on Volatility
The extreme volatility of this monthly indicator is the rationale for paying more attention to its 6-month moving average than to its noisy monthly change. Over the complete data series, the absolute MoM average percent change is 4.4%. The MoM range minimum is -24.0% and the maximum is 33.9%.
For visual confirmation of the volatility, here is a snapshot of the monthly percent change since 1990.
