June 2022 Residential Construction – U.S. Census Bureau

In June 2022 residential permits issued dropped -0.6% in total from May 2022 while rising +1.4% from June 2021. However, the total change in permits issued does not bely the entire truth. The single family market, which has been holding up the construction industry throughout the pandemic, has seen a -8% decrease in permits issued from May 2022 and -11.4% decrease from June 2021. In the multi-family market we see a much different story, where investors had once shied away during the pandemic we see them coming back in numbers. Permits issued increased +13.1% from last month and +27.8% from last year. 

Looking past permits towards units permitted but not started we see a +15.9% increase from June 2021 but only a +1.1% increase from last month suggesting that the number of units permitted but not started are beginning to level out. In the single family market we see a -1.3% decrease from last month as well as from last year suggesting that the surge of home building is almost finished working its way through the market. These houses are being started quicker than last year. In the multi-family market we see a+3.9% increase from last month and a +42.6% increase from last year. Many investors put projects on hold during the pandemic, those who couldn’t rush to finish their jobs. Many investors who shelved plans in 2020 have brought them back to the drawing board but are finding that the material supply is lacking, potentially holding up projects from starting on schedule.

Of those units started we see a slight decrease from last month -2.0% and a larger decrease of -6.3% from last year. These decreases are led by the single family market where starts have decreased -8.1% from last month and -15.7% from last year. In the multi-family market we see quite a different story once again as starts have increased +15% this past month and +16.4% from last year. Units started but still under construction for June 2022 remains constant, up +0.3% from last month; however, we see a +22.4% increase in units under construction from June 2021. From June 2022 both single family and multi-family markets have remained relatively flat at -0.4% decrease and +1.0% increase respectively. In the one year however we see single family units started but not completed increasing by +21% while multi-family increase +24%.

Completions for June 2022 are down -4.6% from last month and up +4.6% from last year. We see a -4.1% decrease in the 1 month time frame for the single family market but an +8.5% increase in the 1 year period. In the multi-family market we see a -5.4% decrease in completions from May 2022 and a -3.7% decrease from June 2022.