Housing market fall two percentages in January

Building starts on new homes fell 2% in January; data released this week. The Housing starts dropped to a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of 1.065 million, below December month’s downwardly revised estimate of 1.087 million. Still, last month’s rate was 18.7% above the 897,000 yearly paces for January 2014, and in line with the prospect of economists surveyed.

January month’s numbers kept up a strong trend in multi-family housing, with builders continuing to bet that the demand for these units will remain strong. Starts on buildings with 5 or more units rose in January, to 381,000, above December month’s revised estimate of 340,000. At the same time, single-family housing starts decrease slightly, falling from December months revised 727,000 to a rate of 678,000.

Building Planners confidence in the market for newly-constructed, single-family homes dropped by 2 points in February to a level of 55. According to the latest National Association Housing Market Index, released Tuesday. A reading of 50 or higher means that more builders rate condition are good than poor and the measure has now hit that mark for 8 direct months.

Solid job development, affordable home prices and in history low mortgage rates should help unleash growing pent-up demand and keep the housing market moving forward in the year ahead.

The number of building permit issued fell slightly in January, to a rate of 1.053 million, 0.7% down from December month 1.06 million. That level was still 8.1% above the pace one year earlier. Single-family permits stood at 654,000 in January month, 3.1% below December month, while buildings with 5 units or more hit a permit rate of 372,000 in January, up from 360,000 the month before.