Housing’s positive trend still intact

Right now housing and cars are carrying the US economy, in the face of a shallow industrial recession partly in the Oil patch, and partly about the strong US$. Yesterday’s housing report didn’t exactly make the situation clearer.

Here is the longer term look at housing permits (blue) and starts (red) dating back to the beginning of 2008. Remember that starts tend to lag permits by a month or so, and starts are about twice as volatile as permits: