Construction starts for single-family homes were down 4.1% in November. That's hardly a surprise. But starts for new apartment units were up 4.8%:
In case you think this is unusual, it's actually part of a very long-term trend:
The single-family housing market is a boom-and-bust affair, but with a marked secular trend downward over the past three decades. During the same period, however, apartment unit starts have grown about 5x. Make of this what you will.
Kevin, this seems like a shocking misreading of the data on your part. Single-family houses are on an upward trend whenever there isn't an economic collapse. But each of those puts the country further behind the eightball in trying to keep up with demand.
Single-family barely made it black to 1992 levels before its latest drop. Not sure that qualifies as an upward trend.
My Companion mother makes 50 bucks an hour on the PC(Personal Computer). She has been out of w0rk for quite some time dki however last month her check was 11k bucks only w0rking on the PC(Personal Computer) for 9 hours per day.
For more detail visit this
article>>> https://brightfuture241.blogspot.com/
Kevin, step away from that trendline!
Like the previous commenter said, saying that single family home starts are on a downward trend is completely incorrect. And the line sketched onto the chart doesn't even fit the data, it's basically a nonsense line drawn to match the words in the post.
It's obvious from the actual data that home starts bubbled slightly prior to 2008, but not too high, and then went very, VERY low due to the impact of the financial crisis, and have been slowly returning to pre-crisis levels.
This extreme cratering of supply is a huge reason why we have such a housing crisis right now. I might even be of the opinion that is THE reason, but I can't make up my mind about whether some other factors are completely independent of that one.
That fact may also be spurring more multi-unit construction, because we just need that many units.
Is this some sort of "Cruz/climate change/hockey stick" schtick?
"During the same period, however, apartment unit starts have grown about 5x. Make of this what you will."
Well, it looks to me like the apartment unit starts went from 200,000 to 400,000. I'm no math major, so I do not understand how "5x" applies.
I can see how 2x, doubled, 100% might apply, but I'm, again, I'm no math major.
City living is on the rise....
OK, in big cities, the ultra-luxury buildings is on the rise for the uber-wealthy who may or may not actually live there....
The same chart, but going back to 1959: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=XR5l
Why did you pick 1992 as your starting point?
Kevin's trend line for single-unit starts is not very convincing itself, but looking further back in time at total units:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=XS6S
there is definitely a downward secular tend. Rates were even higher after WW II and before 1960. These things *must* be normalized by population.
Whether there is a really a shortage of housing or not is to some extent a matter of opinion. At other times and in other places the ratio of units to population has been lower. But one thing we can say is that holding mortgage rates very low after 2008 did not lead to any sort of housing boom. Supposing that central banks can control the economy through housing (as suggested by Krugman and others) has been a total flop, even aside from the 2008 crash, for which central-bank policies bear a lot of responsibility. Housing policy is one of many things which shouldn't be left up to central banks.