HUD AND CENSUS BUREAU ANNOUNCE NEW RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION ACTIVITY IN OCTOBER

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau today announced the following new residential construction statistics for October 2014:

BUILDING PERMITS

Privately owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,080,000. This is 4.8 percent (±1.3%) above the revised September rate of 1,031,000 and is 1.2 percent (±1.2%) above the October 2013 estimate of 1,067,000. Single-family authorizations in October were at a rate of 640,000; this is 1.4 percent (±1.2%) above the revised September figure of 631,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 406,000 in October.

HOUSING STARTS

Privately owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,009,000. This is 2.8 percent (±10.0%)* below the revised September estimate of 1,038,000, but is 7.8 percent (±8.7%)* above the October 2013 rate of 936,000. Single-family housing starts in October were at a rate of 696,000; this is 4.2 percent (±8.8%)* above the revised September figure of 668,000. The October rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 300,000.

HOUSING COMPLETIONS

Privately owned housing completions in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 881,000. This is 8.8 percent (±14.7%)* below the revised September estimate of 966,000, but is 8.1 percent (±13.0%)* above the October 2013 rate of 815,000. Single-family housing completions in October were at a rate of 585,000; this is 7.4 percent (±9.5%)* below the revised September rate of 632,000. The October rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 289,000.

New Residential Construction data for November 2014 will be released on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, at 8:30 A.M. EST. Beginning with the release of the January 2015 data on February 18, 2015, the building permit data will reflect a small increase in the universe of permit-issuing places and will be labeled as the 2014 Universe. These changes will have no effect on the estimates of new housing starts and completions because the increase in the permit universe is offset by a decrease in the universe of areas where permits are not required. Building permit data for 2014 for both universes will be shown in Table 1. New Privately Owned Housing Units Authorized in Permit-Issuing Places of the January 2015 press release.

EXPLANATORY NOTES

In interpreting changes in the statistics in this release, note that month-to-month changes in seasonally adjusted statistics often show movements which may be irregular. It may take two months to establish an underlying trend for building permit authorizations, 4 months for total starts, and six months for total completions. The statistics in this release are estimated from sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability as well as nonsampling error including bias and variance from response, nonreporting, and undercoverage. Estimated relative standard errors of the most recent data are shown in the tables. Whenever a statement such as "2.5 percent (±3.2%) above" appears in the text, this indicates the range (-0.7 to +5.7 percent) in which the actual percent change is likely to have occurred. All ranges given for percent changes are 90-percent confidence intervals and account only for sampling variability. If a range does not contain zero, the change is statistically significant. If it does contain zero, the change is not statistically significant; that is, it is uncertain whether there was an increase or decrease. The same policies apply to the confidence intervals for percent changes shown in the tables. On average, the preliminary seasonally adjusted estimates of total building permits, housing starts and housing completions are revised about three percent or less. Explanations of confidence intervals and sampling variability can be found on our web site listed above.

* 90% confidence interval includes zero. The Census Bureau does not have sufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is different from zero.

Read more about today's release of housing construction activity (www.census.gov/construction/nrc/).

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