Yes, I know it was February. But 1-unit housing starts falling 17% is not a good sign. At least apartment (5+ unit) starts are booming (+23.5%).
While lenders tightening credit is no where near where it was in the past, it is still important to look at.
On a year-over-year basis, 1-unit starts fell 10.6%.
Federal Reserve board nominee Stephen Moore (great public speaker!) was touting the wage growth under President Trump. Turns out the his tout was true! The yellow line is wage growth YoY, compared to the cooling Case-Shiller (my auto correct tried to spell it Case-Swiller) house price index.
In terms of house price growth (as of January), Washington DC loses its crown as the slowest growth top 20 metro area. San Diego and San Francisco are now the slowest growing (sub 2%). Los Angeles is growing slower than DC. The fastest is Las Vegas at 10.5% YoY.
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