The Impact of Unseasonable Weather on Housing Starts

This study tests the effects of unseasonable weather on housing starts at the national and regional level. Goodman [1] examined this issue and concluded that abnormal weather conditions have little or no effect on the pace of housing starts. The models presented in this study allow the impact of unseasonable weather on starts to vary over each month of the year whereas the specification in Goodman constrained these effects to vary between only the summer and winter. In addition, lagged weather deviations are included in the model to determine if unseasonable weather affects the demand for housing or merely the timing of housing starts. The results suggest that unseasonable weather does affect the pace of housing starts in the months of the first quarter. Oddly enough, however, the results indicate that the effects of weather on starts are not offset in following months.