Builders Pull Back on Housing Starts
The July report on residential construction from the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that permits increased during the month for only the second time since January while housing starts posted a significant decline, falling in three of the four major regions.
Permits for residential construction were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.635 million units, up 2.6 percent from the 1.594 million rate in June. June’s permits were originally reported at 1.598 million units. The rate of permitting was 6.0 percent higher than the 1.542 million unit estimate in July 2020.
The permitting number was slightly higher than expected. Analysts polled by Econoday had a consensus forecast of 1.62 million units and Trading Economics‘ predictions came in at 1.61 million.
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