(REASON) – New U.S. home construction is plunging after a brief pandemic boom, showing the strain of continued supply chain woes mixed with persistently high inflation.
Data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development show that 1,446,000 new homes started construction in July, a 9.6 percent fall from June and an 8 percent fall from July last year.
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This is the latest bit of bad news to come out of the industry, adding to the growing pessimism in the homebuilding sector. "A housing recession is underway with builder sentiment falling for eight consecutive months while the pace of single-family home building has declined for the last five months," said National Association of Home Builders Chief Economist Robert Dietz in a press release. He did note that multifamily construction, while down in July, was still up nearly 20 percent from 2021.
