Single family starts still lifting, multi family starts are now rolling over

Housing starts in July totaled 1.452mm which was as expected but June was revised lower by 36k to 1.398mm and vs 1.583mm in May and 1.35mm in April. Splitting this in two, single family starts were 983k and the 3 month average to help smooth all these figures out is 972k vs the 6 month average of 907k and the 12 month average of 885k. This upward trend of course highlights the growing share of home sales that builders are taking both because of the dearth of existing homes on the market and also home builders have been discounting (via various ways) their product in order to ease the sticker shock for buyers. Keep in mind though, single family starts in February 2020 were a touch over 1mm and got as high as 1.3mm in December 2020. 

Also keep in mind, the large builders have no problem accessing credit to develop one off projects and certainly for large communities. The smaller builders though are having a lot of challenges now with getting credit for spec homes. 

Multi family starts fell to 469k and that is the lowest since mid 2021. We know there is a ton of multi family supply coming that is currently underway but there is very little new projects getting started because the current economics don't pencil out anymore.