Housing starts climbed 13.2 percent to a 1.07 million annualized rate following March’s 947,000 pace, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The median estimate of 79 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 980,000.
Earlier this month at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York, Gundlach recommended betting against an exchange-traded fund that tracks an index of homebuilders because declining affordability will reduce housing demand. Gundlach said in an e- mail May 14 that he doesn’t expect a significant increase in housing starts.
Gundlach’s $32.7 billion DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, which invests in mortgage-backed securities, returned 1.8 percent over the past year, ahead of 83 percent of rivals.
‘Uninterested Buyers’
“You have a huge fraction of 18- to 34-year-olds who are unemployed and they also are much less interested in homebuying,” Gundlach said May 6 during an interview with Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, in New York. “Most of these people have been scarred by the housing collapse.”
The share of Americans who own their homes was 64.8 percent in the first quarter, the lowest since 1995, according to a Census Bureau report last month. That’s down from 65.2 percent in the previous three months and 69.2 percent at its peak in 2004.
Zell said in April at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, that the rate may fall to as low as 55 percent as Americans postpone getting married and having children.
“The deferral of marriage has such a staggering impact on real estate and I just don’t think people focus on it,” Zell said at the conference.
Terry Holt, a spokeswoman for Zell, declined to comment for this story.
15-Year Streak