Pace of home construction sees big jump
US housing starts rebounded in August, accelerating at their fastest clip since April and helping offset some of the slowdown seen the prior month.
Government figures released Wednesday showed that the annualized rate of housing starts reached 1.36 million last month, a 9.6% increase over July and slightly higher than the 1.32 million expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Construction of new homes in the single-family space was up 16%, while overall building permits – which indicate future building prospects – increased by 5%, rising to an annualized rate of 1.48 million.
A decline in multifamily starts weighed against those gains, but the overall figures suggested a potentially improving outlook for US homebuilding amid falling mortgage rates and the prospect of impending Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.
The improved performance also helped brighten some of the gloom shrouding the construction outlook from July, when housing starts slid by 6.8% after rising in June.
However, it also continues an unpredictable and uneven year for home construction across the country. That brief uptick in June followed a slump in May to the lowest pace of housing starts for four years – an annualized pace of 1.28 million.
The latest government figures showed a spike in starts across the South, which saw construction accelerate by 15.5% after slipping in July partly because of the impact of Hurricane Beryl. The overall pace of homebuilding also improved in the Midwest and West in August.
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