After the recent spate of sub-par housing news, October Housing Starts rose 1.5% from September to an annual rate of 1.228 million units while Building Permits beat expectations. However, single-family starts declined 1.8% from October while multi-family starts rose 6.2%. Annually, total Housing Starts were down 2.9%, single-family starts were lower by 2.6% while multi-family dwellings were off by 4.5%.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that applications to purchase new homes (Builder Application Survey) fell 2.1% year over year in September though up month over month by 11% from September. The average loan size for a new home was at $332,000, the lowest since July 2017. As of October 2018, the MBA said that new single-family sales were at an annual rate of 673,000 units in October, a jump of 4.7% from the September rate of 634,000. The MBA's Builder Application Survey tracks application volume from mortgage subsidiaries of home builders across the country.

Motor club AAA reports that due in part to higher wages and more disposable income, it expects 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from their homes this Thanksgiving, the highest number recorded since 2005. Around 48 million of those travelers will be driving "over the river and through the woods" to Grandma's house. There will be 4.7 million traveling by train, a 5% increase from 2017. The Thanksgiving holiday period is defined as Wednesday, November 21 to Sunday, November 25.