Housing Starts (Oct.)

Single-family starts dropped for the fourth consecutive month in October to a 15-month low. But we expect starts will soon turn the corner. New home demand is strong, lumber prices have eased back and homebuilder confidence has recovered to a six-month high. Indeed, single-family permits saw their largest gain since March. That said, other material and labour shortages remain, and the improvement in starts will be slow. We expect a rise from 1.04m annualised today to around 1.15m by end-2022.