August 2025 Monthly New Residential Construction
Privately-owned housing permits in August fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.31 million units. This marked a 3.7% decline from July’s revised 1.36 million and an 11.1% drop from August 2024. Single-family authorizations slipped 2.2% from July, landing at a rate of 856,000. Meanwhile, permits for multifamily projects with five units or more held steady at 403,000.
Similarly, housing starts slowed sharply in August, falling to an annual pace of 1.31 million units. That total was 8.5% lower than July’s revised estimate of 1.43 million and 6.0% below last year. Within that figure, single-family starts dropped 7.0% to 890,000 units, reflecting weaker demand. August’s construction starts for buildings with five or more units also registered 403,000.
By contrast, completions moved higher, rising to 1.61 million units in August. This represented an 8.4% increase from July but still an 8.4% decrease from August 2024. Single-family completions improved 6.7% to 1.09 million units, showing steady progress. Additionally, multifamily completions advanced to 503,000, pointing to growth in larger developments.
While new residential construction has been slowed in the past few months by economic uncertainty, recent shifts could point to increased market activity moving forward. New home inventory could finally see movement thanks to lowering interest rates and builders may ramp up production shortly.
