After years of a booming housing market, the industry is now hitting a new snag and could fall into recession.
In July, the number of housing starts took a significant downturn, which could be a sign that the market is in trouble, the Washington Examiner reported.
Housing starts measure the annualized change in the number of new residential buildings and homes that began construction.
Last month, the number of housing starts fell by 9.6 percent. That puts the annualized rate at 1.45 million, a report from the Commerce Department outlined, according to the Examiner.
Even permits to build new housing slowed down by 1.3 percent in July, the Examiner reported.
On top of the declining housing starts, the National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo housing market index fell for the eight month in a row, Fox News reported.
These indexes measure the “pulse of the single-family housing market,” so as they have fallen, it indicates a serious lack of confidence in the housing and home building markets.
Fox News reported that the index fell to 49, which marks the worst stretch for the housing market since the infamous 2008 housing collapse.
This index fall is especially shocking when compared to where it stood just a year ago, at 80.
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