• September housing starts fell 5.3 percent from August but rose 3.7 percent from a year ago to roughly 1.2 million starts (SAAR), according to the Census Bureau.
• Housing permits fell 0.6 percent from August and 1 percent year-over-year, to 1.24 million (SAAR).
• Completed homes fell 4.1 percent month-over-month but were up 7 percent from September 2017.

The most obvious culprit for today’s soft residential construction data is the string of major storms that have hit the mid- and south-Atlantic in recent weeks. The region – which bore the brunt of the destruction wrought by Hurricanes Florence and Michael – accounts for roughly 1 in 8 new homes built nationwide, making an outsized contribution to residential construction compared to its population. It’s likely that construction activity in the Southeast will continue to be muted in October as the area struggles to recover, but should rebound over the winter as the region repairs and rebuilds. It may be tempting to draw national conclusions from these storm-related dips and rallies, but the regional blips can’t obscure the year-long malaise in the national single-family home construction market: Starts have been hit or miss, sales flat and permits trending downward for months. Multifamily activity, though volatile, has been a relative bright spot – but as rent growth slows and even begins to fall in many large markets, it’s unclear how much steam the multifamily boom really has left. For years, the market has clamored for more supply from builders to meet red-hot demand from home buyers. But that is slowly starting to shift with some of the starch taken out of the market as both slowing rent growth removes buyer urgency and rising mortgage rates dent affordability. Builders were slow to respond to trends over the past few years. But by not overextending themselves in the face of seemingly bottomless demand, they seem well-positioned to ride out the next few.