Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Housing Starts Up

Industry Week : "Oct. 20, 2005 -- Economists keep predicting a fall in U.S. housing starts, perhaps in hope their prophecy of a bursting bubble will be self-fulfilling. But reality defied the predictions last month, with housing starts for privately owned residences rising 3.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.108 million instead of the 1.5% decrease to 1.98 million units economists generally were forecasting."

"Starts for single-family residences were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.747 million in September, 2.6% higher than the revised August rate of 1.703 million, the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly reported on October 19. The September rate for housing in buildings with five or more units was 303,000, an increase of 2.7% from August's revised rate of 295,000."

2 comments:

  1. This is sort of what happened with the stock bubble ten years ago.

    At first, as the bubble became insane, the economists and experts touted it. Then, as it peaked, the economists started to say "well, maybe it will come down or stabilize a little." But these things have momentum of their own and can go just a little longer. Of course then it collapsed.

    Of course, then economists act as if they had predicted it all along, when really they were part of the problem all the way up. If I had listened to the economists then, I would have been out of a lot of cash. That has made it easier to ignore them now. But no doubt they will soon be touting their last minute change of heart as their true opinion, and ignoring their housing touts all the way up, after the bubble pops.

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