Starts

Housing starts, year-over-year change, not seasonally adjusted, 1987-2007, NBER recessions shaded

Quickly to update my digression on starts, here is the latest year-over-year picture.

Privately-owned housing starts in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,518,000. This is 0.8 percent (±11.3%)^* above the revised February estimate of 1,506,000, but is 23.0 percent (±5.4%) below the March 2006 rate of 1,972,000.

Single-family housing starts in March were at a rate of 1,218,000; this is 2.0 percent (±10.5%)^* above the February figure of 1,194,000. The March rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 262,000.


^* _{90% confidence interval includes zero. The Census Bureau does not have sufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero.}

New Residential Construction in March 2007 (PDF)
Census Bureau, 17. April 2007

That centered-on-2% estimate for single-family starts is enough to push along the rally in homebuilder shares, with the RUF up ~2.5% at this writing. I continue to have no position, though in the absence of a real turn in the data, I would again short an extended rally.

FD: no homebuilder position