The paper compares and contrast the bias, accuracy, and uncertainty in US housing start forecasts. In comparison to the large forecast accuracy literature to have considered macroeconomic series a relatively smaller number of papers have considered the accuracy of property forecasts. Even in this case the majority have looked at commercial real estate. Papers such as McAllister at al. (2007), Bond & Mitchell (2011) and Matysiak et al. (2012) all consider aspects of the IPF Consensus Forecasts for the UK commercial market. Two recent papers (Pierdzioch et al., 2012, 2013) do consider forecasts of housing starts. Our analysis compliments the analysis contained in Pierdzioch et al. (2012, 2013) who concentrate on whether forecasters tend to herd. This paper examines one-year-ahead forecasts, provided by Consensus Economics, covering a total sample period of 1989 to 2012. The focus of our paper is initially on the overall accuracy of the forecasts of US housing starts. Using conventional measures of forecast accuracy we consider the overall performance of the professional forecasts over the course of the an extended cycle. Using a panel framework we then consider the rationality (i.e. bias and efficiency) of the forecasts based upon the Holden & Peel (1990) framework. Finally, building upon papers such as Fulerton et al. (2000, 2001) and Stevenson & Young (2007), we compare the accuracy of the published forecasts with econometrically estimated forecasts.