New residential housing construction dipped slightly in May, falling 0.3% vs. the previous month, the US Census Bureau reports. Meanwhile, newly issued building permits rose 0.7% last month. The mixed profile also shows up in the year-over-year changes for both indicators, albeit in reverse. The key takeaway: the recent slowdown in housing construction growth will probably linger for the foreseeable future. That’s not dire news, but today’s update suggests that the housing sector’s ability to boost economic growth generally may be waning.
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Recession chatter is on the rise lately. “After seven years of expansion, the U.S. economy appears to be headed for a recession,” writes an economics lecturer at Yale. Meanwhile, Bloomberg this week advised that US recession odds increased to 55% due to a flattening yield curve. And a survey of 400 real estate professionals shows that a majority expect a recession within the next 18 months. The dark forecasts may be right—or wrong. Based on the available data to date, however, the probability is still low that the US economy has fallen into an NBER-defined recession in the recent past.
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