Carnage in home builder sentiment following a record collapse in home buyer sentiment means it really should not be a total surprise to see Housing Starts crashed 22.3% MoM (the biggest drop since 1984). Building Permits also plunged, but by a lower amount, down 6.8% MoM.
Under the hood, Single-family starts fell to 856k from 1,037K SAAR, a 17.5 drop, while multifamily starts crashed 32.1% to just 347K, the lowest since July, from 511K in February.
Permits were ugly too, although here multi-family units actually rose 5.2% to 423K, while it was single family that tumbled to 884K from 1,005K, a 12% drop.
And this is all before most of the national Chinese Flu lock downs came into effect!
Easy Money 