Housing starts in January are expected to fall 2.2% vs. the previous month, on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, according to The Capital Spectator’s average econometric forecast. That’s a sharp reversal from December’s 12.1% gain over the previous month. The Capital Spectator’s projected decrease for tomorrow’s January report is roughly half as much as the anticipated decline based on consensus forecasts from economists.

Here’s a closer look at the numbers, followed by brief definitions of the methodologies behind The Capital Spectator’s projections:

VAR-3: A vector autoregression model that analyzes three economic series to project housing starts: new home sales, newly issued permits for residential construction, and the monthly supply of homes for sale. VAR analyzes the interdependent relationships of these series with housing starts through history. The forecasts are run in R using the “vars” package.
ARIMA: An autoregressive integrated moving average model that analyzes the historical record of housing starts in R via the “forecast” package.
ES: An exponential smoothing model that analyzes the historical record of housing starts in R via the “forecast” package.