The June housing number looked like a turnaround: starts up 19.0 percent, to an annual rate of 1.427 million, a figure that slid easily into the story of an affordability recovery [1]. Nearly all of it was apartments [1].
The jump was multifamily construction rebounding from an unusually weak May, not the single-family homes most families actually buy [2]. Single-family starts were essentially flat - 895,000, down 0.2 percent for the month and 3.2 percent from a year earlier [1]. The headline moved; the owner-occupied market did not [2].
Permits point the other way. Building permits are the leading signal of what gets constructed next, and in June they fell 3.0 percent, to 1.367 million, and sit 2.3 percent below a year ago; single-family permits dropped 2.4 percent [1]. The pipeline for the homes tied to homeownership is contracting, not filling [2].
The people who watch this for a living were blunt. Realtor.com's Jake Krimmel said the 'tepid permitting readouts do not inspire confidence in the country's ability to close the 4 million home supply gap,' and the homebuilders' association pinned the weakness on elevated mortgage rates and financing costs [1].
A 19 percent rebound is a real number, and it is not nothing - more apartments is more housing [1]. What it is not is evidence that the market for the homes first-time buyers purchase is recovering; by the measure that leads, that market is still going the wrong way [1][2].
