November Home Construction Off 5.4% in the West

Housing construction in the Western U.S. declined more than 5% in November despite a higher-than-expected surge in building activity nationwide, the Commerce Department said Tuesday in its first release of economic data since the recent partial shutdown of the federal government.

Much of the region’s drop was blamed on continued weakness in the California new-home market.

“California is still in a five-year housing recession--we have not recovered,” Wells Fargo & Co. chief economist Joe Wahed said.

Nationally, while single-family home construction remained relatively stagnant, a burst of apartment construction helped boost housing starts 5.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.42 million units. Construction in October fell a revised 4.8% to 1.34 million units, the department said.

The November report had been delayed for several weeks by the government shutdown in December and January and by last week’s blizzards in the East. The lack of monthly statistics left many analysts without key information used to gauge the economy.

Although construction remained below 1994 levels, the November report portrays a relatively healthy nationwide industry at the end of a nearly five-year building boom, housing experts said.

Los Angeles-based builder Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. has seen signs of a pickup in its California business. But the builder’s projects in neighboring Western states, such as Nevada and Arizona, “have been growing at a faster rate than California,” said spokesman Greg Romano.

Times wire services contributed to this report.

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Housing Starts

Seasonally adjusted annual rate, in millions of units:

Nov. 1995: 1.42

Source: Commerce Department