housing starts w 50m moving avg
US housing starts are due at the bottom of the hour and forecast to rebound to 1.310m after falling to a post-pandemic low last month.
The long-term chart highlights the problem: US housing starts are significantly lower than they were in 1980 despite a 47% increase in US population.
The housing crash led to a bust in home building that was just turning around when the pandemic dawned. Low interest rates briefly spurred more building but that was quickly undone by high rates.
A healthy rate for US home construction is upwards of 1.6m units and I could argue it’s significantly higher than that. Fortunately, as rates begin turning, it should tick towards that.