Housing

New Housing Starts Fall Further in June

home building
Source: Thinkstock
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Thursday morning that new housing starts in June slipped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 893,000, a decrease of 9.3% from the revised May rate of 985,000 and an increase of 7.5% compared with the June 2013 rate of 813,000. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists expected a rate of around 1.03 million.

The seasonally adjusted rate of new building permits fell to 963,000, which is 4.2% below the downwardly revised May rate of 1.01 million but 2.7% above the June 2013 rate of 938,000. The consensus estimate called for 1.04 million new permits.

Single-family housing starts fell to an annualized rate of 575,000 in June, down 9% from the revised May rate of 632,000.

Permits for new single-family homes rose 2.6% in June, to an adjusted annual rate of 631,000, from a downwardly revised total of 619,000 in May.

Multi-family starts for buildings with five or more units, a more volatile number than single-family starts, rose 39.3% year-over-year in June.

 ALSO READ: Foreclosure Rates in Florida Remain Sky High

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