Primary housing supply dipped 1.4% to 71,000 units

Even construction starts were lower.

According to Barclays, overall, primary housing supply dropped 1.4% from 72,000 units as of September 2013 to 71,000 units at the end of 2013.

New housing construction starts sped up from 2,900 in 3Q to 3,400 in 4Q, which took 2013 full year housing starts to 14,000 units.

Here's more from Barclays:

While this is 25% lower than 2012’s 18,600 units, it is 9% higher than the past five year’s average of 12,900 units.

8,300 units were completed in 2013. Although this is 39% or 5,251 units short of the government’s previous estimate of 13,551 units, this was already well flagged by Centaline earlier this week.

The shortfall can be largely attributed to the slippage of four projects by SHKP and Cheung Kong.