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Construction Lending

Permits Down in May

Privately owned housing units authorized by building permits in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 1.5 million, according to residential construction statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development in June.

This is 3% (with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3%) above the revised April rate of $1.46 million but is 21.7% below the revised May 2006 estimate of 1.92 million. "Housing starts slipped by 2% in May, essentially in line with expectations. After some volatile readings around the turn of the year that were clearly impacted by the weather, starts have been unusually steady since February, averaging 1.49 million units over that four-month period with a tiny range of 1.474 million to 1.506 million," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "For the time being, the housing starts data are a sideshow to the main event, which is the demand side of the equation. We know that demand softened in the wake of the tightening in subprime mortgage space early this year and the gloom-and-doom media treatment that followed. The question is how much this will take away from home sales and for how long."

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