The Commerce Department has reported that Housing Starts for the month of April are up by 2.6% to 717,000 on an annualized basis. The gains seem high, but the Dow Jones consensus was for Housing Starts to be up by some 4.7%. The reading for March was also revised higher or less bad to -2.6% from -5.8% initially reported.
April’s single-family housing starts rose by 2.3%, while multi-family homes rose by some 3.2% in April.
The trick part of the equation is Building Permits, which fell by 7.0% to an annualized level of 715,000 in April. That figure was 769,000 in the month of March.
The Northeast was a drag as starts were down just over 20%, followed by just over an 8% drop in the West. The South led starts with a gain of more than 11% and the Midwest grew by almost 7%.
JON C. OGG
