{"id":689696,"date":"2026-10-20T12:38:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=689696"},"modified":"2026-10-20T12:38:20","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:38:20","slug":"housing-starts-collapse-near-covid-lows-as-homebuilder-confidence-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=689696","title":{"rendered":"Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>Following the <strong>collapse of Homebuilder confidence<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/personal-finance\/us-homebuilder-confidence-crashes-14-year-low-blame-mortgage-rates-immigration\">due to mortgage rates, war, and immigration apparently<\/a>) and the still vast gap down to homebuyer confidence&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-01-45.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-01-45.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"4dc2c572-3abb-44d6-962c-0561d6cdabcf\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-01-45.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;it should be no surprise that homebuilders are unwilling to Start building <strong>(Housing Starts -5.2% MoM in September and August revised down to a 5.9% MoM plunge)<\/strong> or even more forward looking, get Permits ( -0.2% MoM)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-32-42.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-32-42.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"b6ceef05-a531-4d88-a732-cd78076db335\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-32-42.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On a SAAR basis, <strong>Starts are back near post-COVID lows<\/strong> while Permits are holding near the lows of a four year range&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-34-23.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-34-23.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"665f93ce-b08a-4320-834d-98fb5978b896\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-34-23.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Starts of single-family home construction decreased to the lowest level in a year.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally, circling back to where we started,\u00a0Homebuyers have never been less enthusiastic about the American Dream&#8230; perhaps this is why&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The gap between current mortgage rates (7.5%) and the average mortgage across all of American homeowners (4.33%) is extreme to say the least,<strong> trapping sellers and buyers<\/strong>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-10-49.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-10-49.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"8627cb53-9809-4d47-b27e-f58e4ec62e02\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-10-49.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Who blinks first?<\/strong> With inventories of new homes at highs&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a data-image-external-href=\"\" data-image-href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-36-24.jpg\" data-link-option=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-36-24.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-entity-type=\"file\" data-entity-uuid=\"ed28e479-e55c-4e7d-afd8-6bda5227de5c\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-20_05-36-24.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;it appears builders aren&#8217;t willing to throw good money after bad until the mortgage-rate gap narrows further.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" lang=\"\" class=\"username\" xml:lang=\"\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Tue, 10\/20\/2026 &#8211; 08:38<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.zerohedge.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/2026-10-19_07-01-45.jpg\" title=\"Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes\" \/><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes Following the collapse of Homebuilder confidence (due to mortgage rates, war, and immigration apparently) and the still vast gap down to homebuyer confidence&#8230; &#8230;it should be no surprise that homebuilders are unwilling to Start building (Housing Starts -5.2% MoM in September and August revised down&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=689696\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Housing Starts Collapse Near COVID Lows As Homebuilder Confidence Crashes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-689696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=689696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}