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Starts for single-family homes in US rise again in October
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STARTS for US single-family homes rose for a second straight month in October and overall building permits approached a six-and-a-half-year high, suggesting the housing market was still on a recovery path.
The Commerce Department said yesterday that groundbreaking for single-family homes, which take up more than two-thirds of the housing market, rose 4.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual 696,000 unit pace, the highest since last November.
Single-family starts in the US South, where more than half of that segment’s construction occurs, increased to their highest level since April 2008.
But a 15.4 percent plunge in the volatile multi-family homes part of the market caused overall groundbreaking to fall 2.8 percent to a 1.009-million-unit pace.
September’s starts also were revised to a 1.038-million-unit rate from the previously reported 1.017-million-unit pace.
Although the housing recovery is likely to remain subdued given sluggish wage growth and still-stringent lending practices by financial institutions, the strong gains in single-family starts suggest home building will contribute to gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.
The segment added nothing to gross domestic product in the July-September period.
“The theme in housing market activity remains one of gradual improvement as underlying fundamentals continue to pick up,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New York.
A separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed applications for loans to purchase homes surged last week as low mortgage rates lured potential buyers.
Last month, building permits jumped 4.8 percent to a 1.080-million-unit pace, the highest since June 2008. It was the second consecutive month of increases in permits, which lead starts.
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