US housing starts plunge 6.3% in September

17 October 2008 14:29  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--US new home construction continued to decline in September, the Commerce Department said on Friday, down by 6.3% from August and fully 31.1% below housing development activity in September 2007.

 

The new housing figures also indicate that the long-troubled sector is not likely to recover any time soon - despite a number of federal tax and lending incentives - as permits for new home construction also were down in September, falling by 8.3% compared with August.

 

The housing market is a key downstream consumer sector for the chemicals industry, driving demand for a wide variety of chemicals and chemicals-based products such as plastic pipe, insulation, paints and coatings, adhesives and synthetic fibres, among many others.

 

The department said that housing starts - when contractors actually begin work on a new residential structure - were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 817,000 units in September compared with the revised August estimate of 872,000 new homes.

 

In September 2007 the nation saw work begin on 1.18m new homes.

 

Building permits, which are issued by local governments for planned construction, were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 786,000 in September compared with 857,000 permits issued nationwide in August.

 

Compared with September 2007 when some 1.28m building permits were issued, last month’s figures show a 38.4% downturn in anticipated housing construction.

 

The continued slide in new housing construction is in contrast to a sharp gain in pending sales of existing homes seen in August.

 

US housing starts

	Sept ‘08	Aug ‘08	Aug-Sept ‘08	Sept ‘07	Sept ’07 to Sept ‘08
US Housing Starts	.817m*	.872m*	-6.3%	1.185m*	-31.1%

* Seasonally adjusted & annualised

 

($1 = €0.74)

 

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By: Joe Kamalick
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