The first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, you stop digging.

US homebuilders are in a hole of sorts currently, sitting as they are on the largest pile of completed, unsold inventory since 2009. So, they’ve stopped building.

Not entirely, of course. “Builders gotta build,” after all. But a cursory look below the surface of Friday’s starts and permits update in the US showed single-family construction remained very subdued in June.

As the figure shows, the annual pace in June was just 883,000, the second-slowest in two years. Single-family starts have managed just one month-to-month increase in 2025.

The government figures were released a day after this month’s NAHB update suggested nearly four in 10 US homebuilders are resorting to price cuts in an effort to cajole buyers beset by what still feels like an intractable affordability crisis.

Notably, the pace of single-family permits dropped to just 866,000, the slowest since March of 2023.

June marked the fifth decline in six months on that series. Similarly, the index which tracks the pace of under-construction single-family homes fell to 622,000 for June, the slowest since February of 2021.

I realize this is tedious and doesn’t make for the most exciting reading, but it really is important. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t bother you with it.

Simply put, these are the numbers which quantify how the ongoing slump in builder sentiment’s manifesting in actual, new construction. If construction activity falters, that’ll be a drag on overall US growth at a time when questions linger about the health of the consumer, notwithstanding Thursday’s solid read on retail sales.

As it stands right now, America has a glut of new homes and no one willing to buy them. Or at least no one willing to buy them anywhere near the median price which, as of May, was $426,600.