Builders pulled residential construction permits at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,429,000 units in April. This was an 8.9 percent decline from the seasonally adjusted March rate of 1,569,000 and is down 28.1 percent from the revised April 2006 rate of 1,987,000 according to the monthly report on new residential construction released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The April figure represents the slowest pace for permitting since June, 1997.

Housing starts, however, bumped up a bit to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,528,000, 2.5 percent higher than the revised March figure of 1,491,000. Starts, however, were still 16.1 percent below the 1,821,000 pace of one year ago.

As is only logical with starts up and permitting down, the number of outstanding permits under which construction has not yet started dropped from 214,100 units to 200,900 units from March to April, a decrease of 6.1 percent and 14.7 percent lower than the 235,600 permits outstanding in April, 2006.

The President of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), California-based builder Brian Catalde remarked on the association’s website that “Builders are adjusting to the adverse impacts of tighter lending standards on home sales and cancellations by cutting back on the number of new permits and working down their backlog of unused permits. NAHB’s single-family Housing Market Index has been declining since February and builders are bracing for the challenges ahead.” Read more

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