There was good news and bad news in Thursday’s update on residential construction in America. Which do you want first?

“Neither. I don’t give a damn about that release,” said 95% of readers. (I sympathize. Really I do. But you’re either a dedicated macro documentarian or you aren’t, and after a decade of doing this all by my lonely, no one can question my dedication.)

I’ll start with the bad news, as is my wont. Overall housing starts fell 2.6% in August, according to the Commerce Department. That was a big miss: Consensus expected a 7% gain.

The good news is, single-family starts actually showed a meaningful advance, rising almost 8% to the quickest pace since March.

That single-family construction managed a decent showing is notable in the context of extremely depressed builder sentiment.

The NAHB mood survey tends to correlate pretty well with single-family starts for obvious reasons.

As the figure shows (or maybe “suggests” is the better word), single-family starts have held up better than you might expect given the depth of a builder depression that manifested this week in one of the worst NAHB headline prints in 15 years.

Silver linings aside, Thursday’s new construction data was replete with evidence of the challenges bedeviling the market. Single-family permits fell almost 2%, for example, and completions plunged.

The figure below shows you the one-family completed series with the big drop-off for August.

Thursday’s print, marked in orange, was the lowest since February of 2019.

Also on Thursday, the NAR said pending home sales rose 0.3% in August, slightly slower than the 0.4% increase consensus expected.

“Buyers steadily entered into contracts in August even though mortgage rates increased,” the association’s chief economist Lawrence Yun remarked. “However, the housing market is still sluggish, with contract signings below last year due to higher mortgage rates offsetting the increased buying power created by job gains and income growth outpacing home price growth.”

As the figure reminds you, the NAR series was coming off back-to-back declines, and the index remains very, very depressed.

Meanwhile, timelier data from Redfin reflected the deleterious impact of the most recent increase in mortgage rates, which now sport a seven-handle thanks to the increase in 10-year Treasury yields. The site’s four-week rolling measure of pending home sales dropped 3.5% from a week earlier mid-month, hitting the lowest in almost three years, Dana Anderson said Thursday.

She quoted an agent in Portland, who suggested anyone with the wherewithal should buy now. “House hunters who can afford it should be taking advantage of today’s slow market,” the agent said. “If and when mortgage rates trickle down below 6%, I’m willing to bet inventory will be depleted in no time –then it’s boom! Back to bidding wars.”