Eye On Housing
Using the public-use microdata files provided by Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction (SOC), NAHB Economics and Housing Policy group tabulated new single-family housing starts for the nine census divisions, including Pacific, Mountain, West North Central, West South Central, East North Central, East South Central, Middle Atlantic, South Atlantic, and New England. The map and figure below provide a more geographically detailed analysis, looking at housing starts of the new single-family units in the nine Census divisions.
As shown in the map, there were more than 100k new single-family units started in 2015 in each of the South Atlantic and West South Central Divisions. The Mountain Division, the largest area among the nine Census divisions, started 85,448 new single-family units in 2015. The shares of new single-family housing starts in these three divisions accounted for 60% of the total new single-family housing starts in 2015.
Additionally, there were 76,661 new single-family units started in the Pacific Division and 68,005 units started in the East North Central Division in 2015. The Pacific Division shared 11% of the total new single-family housing starts, while the East North Central Division shared 9% of the total new single-family housing starts in 2015.
The shares of the total new single-family housing starts in the West North Central and East South Central Division were about the same, 6% in 2015. The Middle Atlantic Divisions contributed 5% of the total new single-family housing starts, reporting less housing starts than the previously listed seven divisions in 2015, but more than the New England Division, which only shared 3% of the total new single-family housing in 2015.
The figure below shows new single-family housing starts from 2009 to 2015 by divisions (2009 was the year when the SOC questionnaire was last revised). It is obvious that not all of the nine divisions have experienced rapid growths over the past four years. Three of the divisions, including Mountain (114%), South Atlantic (92%) and New England Divisions (77%), grew even faster than the national level (66%) from the 2011 trough. The growth rates of the other six divisions were below the national level, with the slowest one, the West North Central Division, having a 29% growth rate from 2011 to 2015.
This is some fantasticnews! With stocks where they are, one might almost feel that we’re finally getting over the big financial-slump-hump!