David Seiders, NAHB’s chief economist, noted that the fundamentals of the housing market remain basically solid. "Given the strong permit numbers we are seeing, the tight inventory situation, healthy house-price performance, and especially the favorable interest-rate picture, home builders are in good position to pick up the pace of housing production as today's economic and political uncertainties head toward resolution. Assuming the best scenarios of a decisive and relatively quick end to the dispute in Iraq and an anticipated fiscal stimulus package, we're still looking at a year-end housing production figure very close to last year's exceptional 1.7 million units."

The slowdown in February occurred in the single-family sector, where starts decreased 13.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million units. "Keeping things in perspective, this is just shy of the stellar 1.36 million unit rate of single-family housing production gauged for all of 2002," Conine stated. Meanwhile, the pace of multifamily housing production appeared unaffected by the latest news, posting a 2 percent gain in February to a rate of 327,000 units.

Publication date: 03/17/2003