In The News
Housing permits, starts at record low
January 22, 2009 by Mortgage Align · Leave a Comment
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Housing permits and starts both tumbled to record lows in December, according to a government report released Thursday.
The Commerce Department said housing permits fell 10.7% from the prior month to an annual rate of 549,000 in December, while starts were down 15.5% from November to an annual rate of 550,000.
Both measures were at the lowest levels since the government started tracking the data in 1959.
The reports also came in much worse than expected. The Commerce Department was expected to report that building permits ticked down to an annual rate of 615,000, unchanged from a revised reading for the month prior, according to a consensus estimate of economist estimates compiled by Briefing.com.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department was expected to report that housing starts fell to 610,000 in December from a revised 651,000 in November.
Housing permits in December were 50.6% below the year-earlier rate of 1,111,000, and housing starts were down 45% from 1,000,000.
For all of 2008, the report estimates 892,500 housing units obtained building permits, which was 36.2% below the 2007 figure of 1,398,400. Meanwhile, the government estimated that 904,300 housing units were started in 2008, which is 33.3% lower than the 1,355,000 units started in 2007.
Housing starts measure of the number of homes on which construction starts in a month. Housing permits measure the number of permissions taken out to initiate construction on in the given month.
With home prices plummeting and companies slashing jobs by the thousands, Americans have had a hard time making mortgage payments. Foreclosure filings surged 81% in 2008, and they are up 225% from 2006, according to a report from RealtyTrac. 
