Halfhearted Housing

Housing starts were disappointing in July, for the second straight month. That said, starts are up 6.2% YTD which is OK. Single-family starts were up 2.7% Y-o-Y and 0.9% M-o-M, while multifamily starts were down 9.6% Y-o-Y and 3.1% M-o-M. The trends are clear; single-family starts are rising but increasingly slowly and are now growing at almost 8%/year, while multifamily starts decline by about 2%/year, after peaking in late 2015.