Zillow’s Matthew Speakman on 2021’s home-building market

Today’s Daily Download episode features an interview with Zillow Economist Matthew Speakman. In this episode, Speakman discusses the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest housing starts report, which shows the number of single-family homes built in September reached the highest level since 2007.

For some background on the interview, here’s a summary of HousingWire’s coverage of the report:

Single-family housing starts soared in September, a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows, despite an overall rate that was dragged down by a decline in multifamily starts.

Privately-owned housing starts in September rose to an annual rate of 1.415 million, 1.9% above the revised August estimate of 1.388 million and 11.1% above the September 2019 rate of 1.274 million, the Bureau said. Single-family housing starts in September were at an annual rate of 1.108 million, which is 8.5% above the revised August figure of 1.021 million, and a level not seen since 2007, Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, said.

“While starts were up 10.4% from a year prior, the somewhat modest month-over-month change was due to largely offsetting trends in single-family and multifamily starts,” Duncan said. “The former rose 8.5% over the month to 1.1 million annualized units, a level not seen since 2007. In contrast, multifamily starts fell 16.4%, to one of the slowest monthly paces since 2013, not including this past April.”

The Daily Download examines the most compelling mortgage, real estate, and fintech articles reported from the HousingWire newsroom. Each afternoon, the HW team provides our listeners with a deeper look into the stories that are helping Move Markets Forward. Hosted and produced by Alcynna Lloyd and Victoria Wickham.

HousingWire articles covered in this episode:

• September single-family housing starts reached highest level since 2007
• Home price index sees greatest gain in over 2 years
• Refis lead the way as mortgage applications rise 1.7%