Analysis of Revisons to New Residential Construction Estimates
Each month the US Census Bureau publishes preliminary estimates of Building Permits, Housing Starts,
Housing Completions. The US Census Bureau releases these estimates to provide government and private data
users with early measures of new privately owned residential construction and new residential sales activity.
A necessary part of the process of issuing these early data involves the issuance of subsequent revisions.
The revisions are primarily the result of the replacement of imputed data with data which are reported in
subsequent months.
The "Range" shows the largest decrease (or smallest
increase if no months revised down) and largest increase (or smallest
decrease if no months revised up) over the 12 months. The "Average"
is the arithmetic mean of all 12 months. Ideally, this would be
zero if the positive and negative revisions equaled each other.
The "Absolute Average" is the arithmetic mean of the
absolute value of the revision. This indicates the average size
of revision without regard to sign.
Download revision analysis file: PDF [68kb] Excel [36kb]
11/17/22 - Notice of methodology change: Beginning with the January New Residential Construction release on February 16, 2023, the Building Permits survey will change its target universe from the current 2014 basis to an annually updated universe. This change will allow for more accurate and quicker coverage when jurisdictions change from not issuing building permits to issuing them. For additional details on this change and the impact on New Residential Construction, see our 2023 Methodology Change FAQs.
5/02/22 - Final annual estimates for 2021 of housing units authorized by building permits for the U.S. and by Census Region, Census Division, state, metropolitan area, county, and permit-issuing place are now available. Revised monthly estimates for the U.S. and Census Regions for the prior year which have been "benchmarked" to the final annual totals are also released.
FRED Mobile App - Receive the latest updates on the nation's key economic indicators by downloading the FRED App for both Apple and Android devices. FRED, the signature database of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, now incorporates the Census Bureau's 13 economic indicators.
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