Housing Start Reports are Inaccurate At Best

More specifically, the data reported by major news organizations is not technically "inaccurate", it's just misleading.

A "Housing Start," says Andree Huffine, a popular Sarasota real estate broker, "is defined as a home (or housing unit) on which construction started during the month.+

If you recently saw the news reports on January, 2011 Housing Starts, you would think they went up by over 14% and were at the highest level in 4 years. But actually, annualized nationwide single-family home housing starts, the number most of us are interested in, actually fell by 1% in January to 413,000 units, the lowest level in almost 2 years.

Ths confusing situation is caused by the fact that, while the Census Bureau reports Housing Starts by "property type," newspaper headlines typically lump all three Census Bureau categories into a single value.

Here's how the categories actually were reported for January, 2011 by the Census Bureau:

Single-Family Homes were down 4,000 units, or -1%
2-4 Unit Homes saw a negligible change
5 or more Unit Apartment Building Starts were up by 46,000 units, or +80%

Combined together, thses dat apoints do, infact, represent the reported 14% increase. But, the "surge" in nationwide housing starts reported by most news organizations occurred only in one category, the 5-unit-and-up apartment building category. Single-family housing starts were actually down by 1%, not up at all.

Like many things in the real estate business here in Georgia or elsewere, you need to work with a professional. "Introduce yourself to a reputable mortgage broker and a licensed Realtor and trust the information they provide. Don't just read the headlines and react," says Brian Ward, a prominent Sarasota FL real estate agent and Accredited Buyer Representative.