The Commerce Department released December New Residential Construction: Building Permits, Housing Starts, and Housing Completions data this morning. Housing Starts data estimates how much new residential real estate construction occurred in the previous month. New construction means digging has begun. Adding rooms or renovating old ones does not count, the builder must be constructing a new home (can be on old foundation if re-building). Although the report offers up single family housing, 2-4 unit housing, and 5 unit and above housing data... single family housing is by far the most important as it accounts for the majority of total home building. Building Permits data provides an estimate on the number of homes planning on being built. The number of permits issued gauges how much construction...(read more)