Stuttering starts

Today’s penultimate housebuilding figures before the election will increase fears that the recovery is fading.

On the housing minister’s preferred measure (see the spin from Brandon Lewis on the previous figures), housing starts in the July to September quarter were down 10 per cent on the previous three months and up just 1 per cent on a year ago. This is the first quarter-on-quarter fall in starts over two years.

-> Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing