The National Association of Home Builders is reporting that the decline in the housing sector continues, as new construction permits and starts fell to record lows last month.

"The steep declines in home production that were reported today are in keeping with the extremely poor sales conditions that builders are seeing in their markets, as indicated by our most recent member surveys," noted National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chairman Sandy Dunn, a home builder from Point Pleasant, W.Va. "Builders are doing exactly what they should be doing – they are actively reducing their inventories, virtually to the point of no longer building, in order to avoid adding more product to the marketplace. Congress and the Administration now need to do their part and 'fix housing first' in two ways. One is by stimulating demand, which will help put a floor under home values, and the other is by aggressively addressing the foreclosure problem."

Starts of new single-family homes declined nearly 17 percent to 441,000 units in November (a new record low), while starts of multifamily homes fell 23.3 percent to 184,000 units.