Will Housing Starts fall short of the expected units when the report comes out on Tues?
68% of users predicted YES — the community got this one right. 31 predictions cast.
The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development released their New Residential Construction report for May 2026 on June 17, showing privately-owned housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.177 million units — well below the analyst consensus forecast of approximately 1.43 million. The May reading was 15.4 percent below April's revised 1.392 million and 8.7 percent below the May 2025 rate, marking the weakest pace of homebuilding since May 2020, when pandemic-related shutdowns first disrupted the construction industry.
The sharpest deterioration came in multifamily construction, which plunged 40.2 percent to an annualized 295,000-unit pace. Single-family starts fell a more modest 1.9 percent to 882,000 units. Analysts cited two compounding pressures: persistently elevated mortgage rates, holding in the 6.1 to 6.3 percent range through late May, and rising materials costs driven by tariff-related import price increases on lumber and steel.
Building permits — a leading indicator for future construction activity — also declined in May, suggesting limited near-term recovery. The report extended a pattern of housing activity falling short of pre-tariff projections. The Predict Six community got this one right, with 68 percent correctly predicting that housing starts would miss the consensus forecast.