New Home Construction Crumbles in Northeast, Midwest
New home starts plummeted 56.5% last month in New England thanks to historically cold and snowy weather across the region. That freefall helped push the nationwide number down 17% versus January. The Midwest also suffered, with a 37% drop in construction starts. Numbers were down 2.5% in the South and 18.2% in the West. These numbers align with a National Association of Home Builders survey released earlier this week showing declining confidence in the sector as well as surprisingly stubborn consumer gauges suggesting that Americans, in a rare show of frugality, are using money saved at the gas pump to pay down debts rather than splurge on big and small ticket retail items.
With mortgage rates at bargain basement prices and the labor market on the upswing, economists hope that consumers will finally start to spend now that spring weather has arrived across much of the country. [NYT]
