The housing market is trending downward, according to new data and expert analysis. Housing start growth was weaker than expected, and builder confidence dropped.
A survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal had forecasted an 8.3 percent jump for housing starts in July. In actuality, starts grew 0.9 percent, prompting experts to echo PricewaterhouseCoopers principal Scott Volling's sentiment, "June appeared to be an anomaly, but July results indicate a trend." Builder sentiment was flat in July and dropped to 67 points in August, though permits for single-family homes rose 1.9 percent from June to July 2018, the biggest such gain since October 2017, Realtor.com reports.
Some analysts argued weather could have been at play in the recently weak figures. While construction grew in the South and Midwest, they declined in the Northeast and fell starkly in the West in July. “There have been extensive weather issues in the West this summer, including wildfires and a regionwide heat wave, while the Northeast was very wet in July … and so far in August,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities, in a note to clients Thursday. “If this factor is impacting the data, then do not be surprised if August is relatively soft as well.”
