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November 18, 2020US HOUSING STARTS AND BUILDING PERMITS, OCTOBER 2020 The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly announced today the new residential construction statistics for October 2020.
BUILDING PERMITS
US residential building permits remained unchanged in October 2020 compared to the revised September 2020 estimate, at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1,545,000 permits. This is 2.8 per cent above the October 2019 estimate of 1,503,000.
Compared to October 2019, permits for single units increased 20.6 percent while permits for structures with 2 to 4 units increased 25.0 per cent. These gains were partially offset by a 30.6 per cent year-over-year decline in permits for structures with 5 units or more.
From January to October 2020, building permits are up 1.9 per cent compared to the same months in 2019. Permits are up for single unit structures (+10.1%), up for structures with 2 to 4 units (+5.9%), and down for structures with 5 units or more (-13.4%).
HOUSING STARTS
In October 2020, US housing starts increased 4.9 per cent compared to the revised September 2020 estimate, to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1,530,000 structures. This was 14.2 per cent above the October 2019 estimate of 1,340,000.
Year-over-year (Oct 2019 vs Oct 2020), starts for structures with 5 or more units decreased 19.9 per cent. Starts for single unit structures increased 29.4 per cent over October 2019.
Year-to-date (Jan-Oct 2020 vs. Jan-Oct 2019), housing starts are up 7.6 per cent with increases in both single unit structures (+8.8%) and structures with 5 or more units (+4.8%).
Source: US Census Bureau New Residential Construction
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