HOUSE ABOUT THEM APPLES!
Home starts spiked in June
THE HOUSING MARKET is building momentum.
Groundbreaking on new homes jumped in June, while the number of building permits climbed to its highest level in nearly eight years, separate reports showed Friday
The Commerce Department said housing starts rose nearly 10% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.17 million units, while new construction in May was revised upward to a 1.07 million-unit rate from the previously reported 1.04 million.
All of that growth came from a 28.6% surge in multifamily housing that put apartment construction at its highest rate since November 2007.
Starts for single-family houses slipped 0.9% last month.
Building permits issued for home construction — a sign of future activity — rose more than 7% to a 1.34 million-unit rate.
It was the highest showing since July 2007, with permits above the 1 million-unit pace for almost the past 12 months.
The positive data follow a report Thursday from the National Association of Home Builder that said U.S. homebuilders’ confidence was at its highest level since November 2005, before the Great Recession and a financial crisis in late 2008 that nearly sunk the housing industry.
Sales of new homes in May were up 2% after a slow start to the year.
“The tide has certainly turned in favor of optimism about demand for housing, fueled by job growth and household formation,” Selma Hepp, chief economist for real estate site Trulia, told the Daily News.
But Hepp warned that Friday’s encouraging figures on housing starts was spurred almost entirely by the rise in new multi-family buildings.
“While multifamily construction is reaching prerecession levels, we are still a long way behind with single-family construction,” Hepp said. “We’re back to prerecession levels in some components of the market but not all.”