The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced the residential construction statistics for November on Thursday, which revealed that monthly housing starts rose above October’s drop.

Housings starts were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.68 million for November. In October, housing starts fell to 1.5 million, a 0.7% drop from September, and below the 1.576 million forecast.

For November, the 1.68 million is an 11.8% increase above the October number. Housings starts for November represented an 8.3% bump from last year’s 1.6 million in November 2020.

The number of building permits for November was 1.71 million, a 3.6% rise from October's 1.65 million, and a 0.9% increase from last year’s 1.7 million for November 2020.

However, the Mortgage Bankers Association Builder Application Survey data for November reveal that the number of new mortgage applications decreased by an unadjusted 2.2% from a year ago. Compared to October, applications decreased by 3%.

Joel Kan, the MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said, “a competitive purchase market, combined with increased building materials costs, have been pushing sales prices higher.”

Kan continued, saying, “new home sales had a strong month with more homebuyers choosing newly built homes. MBA's November estimate for new home sales is the largest for the month since the survey began in 2012.”

By 2022, senior vice president and chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders Robert Dietz predicts, according to Forbes, that, "with housing demand solid and existing home inventory too low, home construction should continue at a strong pace in 2022, according to NAHB forecasts.”

However, supply chain-related troubles still plague the industry by driving up prices. The NAHB predicts that the homebuilding industry needs to add 740,000 workers a year to combat labor shortages, industry growth and retirements.

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