US Housing Starts Tumble For 2nd Straight Month As Homebuyer Sentiment Crashes

After unexpectedly tumbling in September, US housing starts and permits were expected to rebound modestly in October, but the picture was more mixed than hoped for.

US housing starts unexpectedly fell for the second straight month (-0.7% MoM vs +1.5% MoM exp) but US building permits rose more than expected (+4.0% MoM vs +2.8%) from the downward revised 7.8% MoM slump in September)...

Source: Bloomberg

This pushed the Starts SAAR to its lowest since April, and rebounded Permits SAAR from its lowest since August 2020...

Source: Bloomberg

Single-family Starts fell 3.9% MoM to 1.039mm SAAR - its lowest since Aug 2020 - while Multi-family (rental) unit Starts jumped 6.8% MoM to 470k SAAR...

Single-family Permits rose 2.7% MoM while Multi-family unit Permits rose 6.6% MoM...

And this is all happening as homebuilder sentiment surges back towards record highs and homebuyer sentiment crashes to new record lows...

Source: Bloomberg

WTF!?