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Housing starts hit 17-year-low
March 18, 2008
The U.S. Commerce Department said today that new construction on single-family homes dropped 6.7 percent in February to an adjusted annual rate of 707,000, the lowest point in 17 years.
Permits for single-family homes dropped 6.2 percent to a 639,000 annual pace. The report shows that home building remains extremely weak. Analysts say there is still no end in sight to the housing crisis.
The National Assn. of Home Builders reported builder sentiment remained at extremely low levels in March, barely bouncing off a record low set in December, according to marketwatch.com.
The building news comes on top of results announced yesterday for Wolseley, plc, which said the housing slump in the U.S. was the main reason that its pre-tax profit was $124.3 million, down 72.5 percent for the first six months of 2008. The company said it does not expect an improvement in the U.S. home building market any time soon.
Wolseley’s Stock Building Supply’s revenue was $1.8 billion, down 25 percent from a year ago. Stock also reported a loss in profits of $89 million in FY 2008. Last year, in the same time period, it showed a profit of $81 million.
CFO Steve Webster pointed to areas of the U.S. specifically, Texas, Florida and the construction services industries in Nevada as areas “which have been impacted severely in this (residential) downturn.”
Wolseley’s Ferguson Enterprises reported revenues of about $5.6 billion, an increase of 3.2 percent over the same period a year ago.
Posted by Jack Keough on March 18, 2008 | Comments (0)