by Calculated Risk on 2/20/2018 09:41:00 AM

It is hard to believe this was 10 years ago ...

Ten years ago today, I discussed housing starts: Single Family Housing Starts Lowest Since Jan 1991

"Single-family housing starts in January were at a rate of 743,000; this is 5.2 percent below the December figure of 784,000."
...
[S]ingle family starts [are] at the lowest level since the '91 recession.

Single family starts had collapsed significantly, but still had much further to fall.

Single family starts reached the lowest on record (since 1968) of 353 thousand SAAR in March 2009. It wasn't until April 2015 that single family starts were back up to the level of January 2008!

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows total and single unit starts since 1968.

In the latest report, single starts were at 877 thousand SAAR. Well above the recession low, but still fairly low historically.