The Census Bureau released the latest New Residential Construction data on Thursday, September 17, covering August 2026.
Topline figures include a 2.7% drop in new permits from July (but 3.5% above August 2025) and a 2.6% drop in housing starts from July (down 1.2% from last August).
Maor Greenberg, co-founder and CEO of Spacial, an AI-powered structural engineering platform for residential construction and a 19-year veteran of the construction and real estate industries, shared the following comments about the latest data.
- Housing starts, YTD: “The year-to-date number shows the trend: Single-family, single-unit starts were 625,600 through August, against 656,600 last year, which is a decline of 4.7% and clears the margin of error. With eight months of 2026 data, the softening is real, even with some month-to-month ups and downs.”
- Trends in the data: “I’ve described single-family starts as having plateaued since the spring, because every month, through June, sat at 889,000 or above. But it’s been closer to a slow drift down, rather than a flat line. July’s single-family starts total, at 853,000, wasn’t necessarily a break in that trend and I wouldn’t say that August’s number, 918,000, showed a rebound. The difference from July is up 7.6%, against a 14% margin of error, so it doesn’t clear on its own terms.”
- Watch “authorized, but not started” numbers: “Single-family permits were 878,000 in August, and single-family starts were 918,000, so starts are running 40,000 above permits. Watch the ‘authorized, but not started’ numbers. The total was 280,000 in August, up 12.9% from last year, which clears the 7.1% margin of error. Single-family held at 148,000 in both July and August. August posted a strong starts number, but it didn’t pull much out of the queue.”
- Fall in completions: “Housing completions totaled 1,128,000, down 27.1% year-over-year, with an 8.9% margin of error. Single-family completions were 816,000, down 10.4% from the 911,000 in July. Under construction was 1,271,000, down 3.2% year-over-year, with a margin of error of 2.9%. The bottleneck shifted from project approval to project completion. That’s a labor and financing problem.”
