According to the Commerce Department’s announcement on 1/20/2010, 557,000 new home construction projects broke ground last month, down 4.0 percent from November’s upwardly revised data. Meanwhile, almost 11.0 percent more building permits were filed for last month, offering some rather obvious conflicting views with respect to current trends.
The housing market, like any other market whether it be the bond, stock, commodity, labor,…etc, has been greatly impacted by the general lack of leverage available to facilitate the economy’s needs in a efficient manner. Hopefully, as the economy releverages itself through a prolonged period of lower long-term interest rates, the statistics on housing starts and building permits will gradually improve. In our opinion, it will take a significant amount of time before the appropriate amount of leverage is established. Don’t give up hope, we will see the need to use our tools again in a big way!
These monthy statistics seem to show little consistant trends, and how are they revised and why?
You have to take all these Govt. statistics with a grain of salt. I would just find a good private site that interputs the numbers objectively and then explains them!