Although there was a month-over-month improvement in the pace of single-family housing permits and completions, apartment activity declined.
Permits were authorized on a preliminary 100,500
privately owned U.S. housing units during September in places that issue permits.
Last month’s permit activity brought to 953,300 the number of housing permits that were issued from Jan. 1, 2017, through the end of last month.
Those figures were included a a report Wednesday from the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the annual rate of new permits preliminarily worked out to a seasonally adjusted 1.215 million. The rate retreated from a downwardly revised 1.272 million in August and an upwardly revised 1.270 billion in September 2016.
Although the seasonally adjusted annual rate on one-unit permits was up more than 2 percent from the preceding month to 819,000, the rate plunged 17 percent to 360,000 on multifamily properties.
The overall rate of permit issuance in the West was a seasonally adjusted 326,000 during September 2017, sinking from the prior
month by 9 percent — the biggest drop of any region. The rate fell 6 percent in the South to 585,000.
But in the Midwest, the rate inched up less than a percent to 185,000, while it jumped 9 percent in the Northeast to 119,000.
Last month ended with a seasonally adjusted 149,000 U.S. housing units authorized but not started.
The report indicated that construction was started at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.127 million during September 2017. The rate receded 5 percent from the last report but rose 6 percent from a year earlier.
National Association of Home Builders Chairman Granger MacDonald noted in a written statement, “We are seeing the hurricanes take a toll on single-family production.”
As of the most-recent date, a seasonally adjusted 1.082 million housing units were under construction.
Home builders completed construction on 99,300 housing units last month, bringing to 841,800 the number of units completed so far this year.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the annual rate of completed construction was 1.109 million in September 2017, up 1 percent from a month earlier and 10 percent higher than a year earlier.
On one-unit properties, the rate rose 5 percent to 781,000. But it fell 7 percent to 322,000 on properties with five or more units.
The overall annual rate of completed construction in the Northeast was 83,000 last month, plummeting from August by 41 percent — the worst month-over-month performance of any region. The West experienced a 2 percent month-over-month drop to a rate
of 252,000.
But completed construction was up 3 percent percent in the Midwest to a rate of 182,000. In the South, construction was completed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 592,000 — climbing 7 percent from August.
“Looking at historical data, there is a pattern of decreased production immediately following natural disasters but economic fundamentals will drive the longer-term trend in housing starts,” NAHB Senior Economist Michael Neal said in the trade group’s statement.
