US housing starts and building permits tumbled in December to 50 year lows amid a deepening housing crisis and recession, government data show today.
The Commerce Department said the number of housing starts plunged 15.5% in December from November to an annualised rate of 550,000 units.
It was the third consecutive monthly drop in starts as the construction sector retrenched in the face of rising unemployment and tight financing conditions despite unprecedented government measures to break the credit crunch.
Housing starts in December were 45% below the figure for December 2007, the department said.
Permits to build new homes, an indicator of future activity in the housing sector, dropped 10.7% from the prior month to an annualised rate of 549,000. The sharp drop in housing starts outstripped most analysts' forecasts of 610,000, while the permits decline was not as bad as the 615,000 forecasted.
The December numbers showed the growing depth of a year-old recesssion, linked to the collapse of the housing market in 2006 that triggered the global financial crisis.
They were the lowest on record - housing starts data were first published in January 1959, and permits data in January 1960. Construction permits numbers fell steadily throughout 2008, with the exception of June.
