Housing Starts, Building Permits decline in February.

March 18, 2008 - Forex Economic News

News came out of the United States today in the form of statistics on Housing Starts and Building Permits and followed the declining trend of the past months. U.S. Housing Starts in February dropped 0.6 percent compared to January according to data released by the Commerce Department on new residential construction. February showed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,065,000 privately-owned housing starts, a decrease from January's 1,071,000 estimated housing starts. February's total is down 28.4 percent compared with February of 2007. Single-family housing starts totaled 707,000 which was 6.7 percent less than January.

Building permits statistics, used as a predictor of future construction, showed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 978,000 permits in February which is a decrease of 7.8 percent compared to January. February's total marked the lowest level for building permits in 16 years and is a 36.5 percent drop from February 2007. Single-family permits totaled 639,000 which was 6.2 percent less than January's 681,000 permits.

Housing Completions for February were also decreased compared to January. February posted an annual rate of 1,208,000 privately-owned housing completions. This is a decrease of 8.8 percent compared to January and a 25.8 percent drop compared to February 2007 which saw 1,628,000. Single family housing completions totaled an annual rate of 903,000 in February dropping 9.4 percent against January.

All eyes are on the U.S. Fed's interest rate decision expected today at 18:15 PM GMT(2:15pm est). The market is generally expecting at least a 50 basis point rate reduction and there are many speculating that a 100 basis point cut is not out of the question.

Tags: housing starts, building permits, housing completions, us, rate decision, interest rate

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