# x402-factory Housing Starts Economic Indicator

> x402-factory Housing Starts Economic Indicator is a paid API for AI agents from x402-factory.com, paid per call via x402, $0.02/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-21).

Returns the latest US housing starts print from FRED/ALFRED with first-release vs revised values, surprise vs expectation, next release date, and a 12-observation mini-series

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://x402-factory.com/v1/econ/housing-starts?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.02/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-21
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/x402-factory-housing-starts-economic-indicator-0dd16837
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_K3iz4wTJeedj2jinfubM8

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability x402-factory-housing-starts-economic-indicator-0dd16837
```

Example prompt: What are the latest US housing starts numbers — show me whether they beat or missed expectations, how much they were revised from the first release, and when the next print is due?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need housing starts data specifically, pre-packaged with revision tracking (first-release vs current value), surprise vs expectation analysis, and a mini time-series — all in one call. Prefer this over raw FRED API calls when you want the revision flag, market-implied expectations via prediction markets, and next release date without building that logic yourself. Choose it over general economic data aggregators when you want the x402 micropayment model with per-call pricing.

## Known failure modes

- FRED/ALFRED data source temporarily unavailable — may return 503 or stale data indicator
- No matching prediction market exists — expectation_source falls back to trend-model instead of market-implied
- Payment of $0.02 USDC not received — returns 402 Payment Required
- Surprise field returns null if the latest release is too recent to compute a surprise
- Next release date may be approximate if Census has not yet published the official schedule

## How this service works

Housing starts (Census, monthly): latest print, revisions, surprise — Latest Housing starts print from the Census via FRED/ALFRED: first-release vs latest value with a revised flag (revisions never pose as print-day numbers), surprise vs a labeled expectation (market-implied when a matching prediction market exists, else trend-model), next monthly release date, and a 12-observation mini-series.…

## Output

A JSON object containing: the FRED series ID and title, latest housing starts print (observation date, headline value, units, basis, first-release value, latest revised value, revised flag), surprise object (actual, expected, surprise delta, expectation source as market-implied or trend-model, and optional prediction market details), next monthly release date, a 12-observation recent mini-series of date/value pairs, and a revisions array comparing first vs latest values for recent observations.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "properties": {
   "type": "string"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "data": {
   "title": "Housing Starts (SAAR)",
   "units": "Thousands of Units",
   "recent": [
    {
     "value": 1432,
     "obs_date": "2025-07-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1291,
     "obs_date": "2025-08-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1319,
     "obs_date": "2025-09-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1273,
     "obs_date": "2025-10-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1319,
     "obs_date": "2025-11-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1378,
     "obs_date": "2025-12-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1385,
     "obs_date": "2026-01-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1346,
     "obs_date": "2026-02-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1522,
     "obs_date": "2026-03-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1414,
     "obs_date": "2026-04-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1199,
     "obs_date": "2026-05-01"
    },
    {
     "value": 1427,
     "obs_date": "2026-06-01"
    }
   ],
   "series": "housing-starts",
   "fred_id": "HOUST",
   "surprise": {
    "actual": 1427,
    "expected": 1378.3,
    "surprise": 48.7,
    "expectation_detail": "trend-model: mean of prior 3 levels",
    "expectation_source": "trend-model"
   },
   "frequency": "Monthly",
   "revisions": [
    {
     "obs_date": "2026-05-01",
     "first_value": 1177,
     "latest_value": 1199
    },
    {
     "obs_date": "2026-04-01",
     "first_value": 1465,
     "latest_value": 1414
    },
    {
     "obs_date": "2026-03-01",
     "first_value": 1502,
     "latest_value": 1522
    }
   ],
   "latest_print": {
    "revised": false,
    "headline": 1427,
    "obs_date": "2026-06-01",
    "latest_value": 1427,
    "headline_basis": "first release level",
    "headline_units": "thousands",
    "first_released_on": "2026-07-17",
    "first_release_value": 1427
   },
   "release_name": "New Residential Construction",
   "source_agency": "U.S. Census Bureau",
   "next_release_date": "2026-08-18"
  },
  "meta": {
   "docs": "https://x402-factory.com/docs/econ.series.housing-starts",
   "sources": [
    "fred"
   ],
   "version": "1.0.0",
   "endpoint": "/v1/econ/housing-starts",
   "data_mode": "live",
   "freshness": "daily",
   "request_id": "req_00000000",
   "generated_at": "2026-08-21T03:58:57.916Z"
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/x402-factory-housing-starts-economic-indicator-0dd16837/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from x402-factory.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/x402-factory.com/llms.txt)