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The monthly report on housing starts released today from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce didn’t have the shock and awe of last month, when the report showed a whopping 14.2 percent free fall from the month before (that was actually revised even further to 14.8 percent by the way), but it still has analysts concerned.

If you look at it from the housing market perspective, then it’s good that starts and permits are down because inventories are way too high. But if you look at it from the perspective of home building’s contribution to the greater economy, then you see the reason for concern.

I spoke with Raymond James housing guru Paul Puryear, who said: “I will tell you that if you look back over the residential fixed investment as a percentage of GDP for the last 30 years - when it gets down to this level--and right now it's about 4.2 percent of GDP--that's a pretty good indicator of a recession.”

The Faith Part
In other news, NBC Boston affiliate, WHDH, did a story last night on a woman who buried a St. Joseph statue in her backyard in order to help sell her house. Jennifer Burke’s house sat on the market for several months before she decided to “turn to a higher power.” St. Joseph is the patron saint of home and family (believe it or not I have one on my desk) and dates back to sometime in the 16 hundreds.

After hearing stories, like that of Waltham, MA resident Mary Bolles, who got an offer on her house the day after she turned to St. Jo, Jennifer decided to bury it in her backyard as well.

Apparently several local stores in the area report having a hard time keeping the statues in stock. See, every cloud…

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