“Home construction up, foreclosures down” read the MSNBC headline, just one of the many sources putting a positive spin on the November new construction numbers released by the Census Bureau on Thursday.
The positive spin in question is reporting seasonally-adjusted numbers for November starts, which showed a 3.9% rise from October. Non-seasonally adjusted numbers didn’t look so good.
The number of privately-owned housing units completed (pdf) in November (not seasonally adjusted) fell to 44,600, the lowest level since record-keeping began in 1968. Single-family completions were not at record lows, but multi-unit completions were.
Be sure to visit our Chicago Real Estate News page, where we summarize the latest from 100s of sources ranging from the Wall Street Journal to local blogs. You’ll find enough conflicting reports there to support whatever spin you prefer to put on the direction of local and national real estate markets.