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New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started: Total Units HOUST

Thousands of Units • Monthly • Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate
Source: FRED | Last updated: 2025-09-17 07:32:02-05 | Range: 1959-01-01 → 2025-08-01

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Trend

Momentum

Trend Heat Strip & Seasonality

YoY Heat Strip

≤ −5% Decline > +5% Growth

Seasonality (Average by Month)

What am I looking at?

What it shows: the average level of the series for each calendar month (Jan…Dec) across the full history.

Computation: for each month m, take the mean of all observations whose calendar month = m (all years equally weighted).
Interpretation:
- Not seasonally adjusted (NSA): clear recurring peaks/troughs by month.
- Seasonally adjusted (SA): should be fairly flat (seasonality already removed).
Caveats: uses raw levels, so long-run trend can dominate; best for monthly series. For a relative view, consider a seasonal index (month_mean ÷ overall_mean − 1) or limit to the last N years.

Distribution & Extremes

Histogram of Monthly Changes

Context

Recent Prints

Date	Value	MoM	YoY

Release

New Residential Construction

See full release page

Typical schedule and next expected date may vary; check the release page for official timing.

What this measures & how to read it

As provided by the Census, start occurs when excavation begins for the footings or foundation of a building. All housing units in a multifamily building are defined as being started when this excavation begins. Beginning with data for September 1992, estimates of housing starts include units in structures being totally rebuilt on an existing foundation.

Tip: focus on multi-month trends to reduce noise from seasonality, one-off shocks, and revisions.