Construction on the Rise

Housing Starts Up 3.6% in June
Friday, July 17, 2009

Washington, DC, July 17, 2009--Housing starts rose 3.6 percent in June to an annual rate of 582,000 and their highest level since November, following a revised 562,000 pace in May, according to the Commerce Department. Building permits climbed 8.7 percent to a 563,000 annual rate, the highest level of the year.
Economists were expecting a drop in starts to a 530,000 pace.
Construction of single-family homes jumped 14 percent, the biggest gain since December 2004, to a 470,000 rate. The fourth consecutive increase brought single-family starts to the highest level since October. Starts on multifamily homes dropped 26 percent after surging 66 percent in May.
Combined sales of existing and new homes climbed to a 5.1 million annual rate in May, the highest level so far this year.
Home starts were down 46 percent from a year earlier and are down from a peak annual rate of 2.27 million in January 2006, which capped the biggest housing boom in six decades.