NH Home Buyers and seller alike should know that after a strong March showing and a surprise upward-revision for February, Housing Starts are, once again, trending better.

It’s yet another signal that the housing market in Bedford, NH and nationwide is stabilized.

A Housing Start is a new home on which construction has started and, over the last 6 months, home builders are averaging one half-million starts per month.

This marks the highest 6-month average since 2008 and a reading one-fifth percent better from 12 months ago.  Revisions to prior data have all been higher, too.

Even more interesting, though, is that the number of newly-issued building permits is exploding. Permits were up more than 5 percent last month and have climbed back to the levels of late-2008.

Housing permits are an important data point in housing because permits are precursors to actual housing starts.  According to the Census Bureau, 82% of homes start construction within 60 days of permit-issuance.

Therefore, because March’s housing permits increased, we should expect Housing Starts to continue to rise into the early months of summer.

This, too, reflects well on housing because the federal home buyer tax credit won’t be in existence this summer. The simple fact the homes are being built now shows that housing is likely to expand even after the tax credit expires.

NH Home Buyers, keep in mind that non-military members must be under contract by April 30, 2010 and occupy by June 30, 2010 in order to claim up to $8,000 in federal tax credits.

While this and other data coming out nationally has been somewhat upbeat, it’s important to remember that a lot of the data is comparing current year info to last year so “improving” is a subjective term. We have a ling road ahead of us but, speaking as someone who’s been that road before (and bought a house at the end of that road), now may not be a bad time consider buying a home here, in NH.

Tweet This Post