Housing Starts Decline 2.1% During November : Construction: Bitter weather in some areas may have been a factor.

Construction of new homes and apartments fell modestly in November, the Commerce Department said, possibly hurt by bitter winter weather in some regions.

The 2.1% November decline left housing starts at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.07 million units and partly reversed a revised 7.1% rise in October starts.

In the first 11 months of this year, housing starts were 16.5% below the same period last year. In 1990, starts were off 13.3% from 1989.

Early in November, the Midwest and the East were hit by weather that slowed construction.

Builders have complained that they are victims of a credit crunch caused by bankers’ caution in making new loans. Senior Treasury officials told bank examiners at a national conference Monday to use “common sense and responsible regulation” in assessing the quality of banks’ real estate loans and to try to work with borrowers instead of foreclosing on them or shutting them out of credit markets.

Despite last month’s decline, the housing market has been on an upward trend much of the year--albeit from a very low annual rate of 847,000 units in January, when the economy was deep in recession. Home building was one of the few bright spots last spring as the economy struggled out of a recession that began in mid-1990.

Lower interest rates make it cheaper for home buyers to afford monthly payments, but job fears and leftover debts from the 1980s have made many consumers reluctant to boost their long-term financial commitments.

Surveys by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., or Freddie Mac, show rates for a 30-year mortgage in the week ended Dec. 13 at 8.53%--lowest in 17 years.

Construction of single-family homes rose a slight 0.1% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 892,000 units after a 3.5% rise in October, the department said. At the same time, new-apartment building dropped a sharp 12.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 174,000 units after jumping 26.9% in October to a 198,000-unit rate.

Building permit applications, an indicator of future plans, fell 2.9% to a seasonally adjusted 998,000-unit annual rate last month after a 4.7% increase in October. Permits for single-family homes were down 1.6% to a 783,000-unit rate in November, and permits for apartments fell 7.3% to a 215,000-unit rate.

Regionally, housing starts fell 8.2% last month in the Midwest to a rate of 224,000 units a year and slipped 2.7% in the West to a 255,000-unit rate. In the South, starts rose 0.4% to a 467,000-unit rate, while in the Northeast they were up 1.7% to a 120,000-unit rate.

The number of houses actually started in November declined to 75,300 before seasonal adjustment--from 102,000 in October and 81,400 in November, 1990.

Housing Starts Down

Seasonally adjusted annual rate, millions of units

Nov., ‘91: 1.07 Oct., ‘91: 1.09 Nov., ‘90: 1.13

Source: Commerce Department