Posted on 04/18/2023 12:59:40 PM PDT by Red Badger
The number of housing starts tumbled in March, an indication that the housing market is taking a hit and may be falling into a recession.
Housing starts measure the change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction. Starts fell 17.2% from March 2022 to this past month, according to a Tuesday report from the Census Bureau. They are now at 1.42 million. From February to March, they fell 0.8%.
Additionally, permits to build, which are seen as a proxy for future construction, decreased by 8.8% in March.
“We expect choppiness for single-family construction in the months ahead, with the 2023 data posting significant year-over-year weakness before improving on a sustained basis,” the National Association of Home Builders's chief economist Robert Dietz said. “The multifamily market softened in March, and we anticipate ongoing declines for apartment construction in the months ahead due to tighter lending conditions in the commercial real estate sector.”
Tuesday’s report comes as the Federal Reserve’s campaign to slow spending across the economy by hiking interest rates has taken a major toll on the national housing market.
The rate on the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage soared from just over 3% at the start of 2022 to over 7% in November. It has since drifted down following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank to 6.27%.
In other housing news, sales of new homes increased slightly from January to February, a sign that buyers might be reentering the market amid lower mortgage rates, according to data released late last month by the Census Bureau.
New home sales in February increased from the month before, rising 1.1% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 640,000. Nevertheless, sales were 19% lower than in February 2022.
The Fed once again hiked interest rates last month by a modest quarter of a percentage point despite the uncertainty from the collapses of SVB and Signature Bank. That ultimately means more pressure on mortgage rates this year.
Try to get someone to fix your existing house.
I waited five days to get a plumber.
Septic tank permits take 12 weeks in my county.
We don’t have that problem here.
I’m surrounded by Mexicans....................
“raising recession fears”
We’ve been in a recession for a while.
I’m more afraid of $33 trillion debt ballooning to $40 trillion in a couple years, the loss of the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency, hyperinflation when countries send their dollars back, then $60 trillion debt, and wholesale collapse of the USA. We all better start Mandarin lessons for our new masters.
At least we can learn our pronouns in Mandarin.
Who are the leaders? Who's been running the show for many decades? Professional career lawyer politicians!
What a shock!
You mean those guys who care so much about us and our formerly great country?
Agree
And those are supposed to be the smart people...lol
BidenDepression 2023
It is nearly i,possible to get people to work for you in my county and we have All sorts of immigrants. I can’t even get someone to clean my house for a reasonable price. I’m not going to tell you what they wanted to charge because you would think that we lived in a castle.
We are looking for basic yard work and weed-pulling. One quote was $50 per hour!!! This is in North Idaho where we don’t have Mexican labor.
I hired a few crews when we bought the house in 2018 and was paying $25/hour for those services. Double the price in just five years.
Are you in Mexico?
Well no SHEET!!!!
For everybody but Mitch, Chuckie, Joey, Yellen, Lindsey, and the gang, who never feel the costs of food, fuel, utilities, housing, transportation.
All on others backs.
Like plumbing, car repair, gardening maybe.
I've poured concrete, repaired plumbing, build fence, wooden and barbed wire. Replaced windows, replaced a whole roof on a house.
Etc, etc.........
And I'm not a laborer...I'm a professional...with a degree.
Wait until you turn 80.
wow! my eagle scout does the neighbors yard for 25. The man is a WWII vet.
My husband runs a lumberyard and does the yard himself with my son.He is a very hard worker
For those physically able it is a golden age for DIY work. There are ample online text/video instructions for repairs, model numbers can be searched, and parts can be ordered and shipped quickly.
I’ve learned to do my own copper pipe soldering, HVAC repair (debug and replace a capacitor, replace a motor, etc), replaced my car wheel bearing, tile a bathroom, and a hundred other things. Sometimes it takes me longer on the first pass - this is merely tuition so that I can do it better next time.
They want $1000 to clean my house. $2000 to do the windows and gutters.
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