April new home groundbreaking in the US increased 6.6 per cent to 1.17 million units, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
US housing starts rose 6.6 per cent to an annualized pace of 1.17 million units, as low mortgage rates continue to spur demand for home ownership. Building permits meanwhile climbed 3.6 per cent to a 1.11 million-unit rate.
The average starts rate over the three months ending in April is more than 14 per cent above the average of February, March, and April rates in 2015.
Single-family housing starts were up 3.3 per cent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 778,000, putting the pace of single-family production 4.3 per cent above April 2015. Single-family starts in the most recent three months have averaged 21 per cent higher than the aver- age of February, March, and April rates in 2015.
US Housing Starts, Home Building
Issuance of permits for single-family housing projects is running 8.4 per cent higher in April than a year prior, and the comparison of three-month averages shows single-family pacing more than 11 per cent ahead of 2015.
Multifamily starts came in at a 373,000 seasonally adjusted annual pace, up 10.7 per cent from March but down 12.9 per cent compared to April 2015. Nevertheless, the three-month average for multifamily starts in February, March, and April 2016 is 12.4 per cent above the same three months in 2015.
Multifamily permits are down almost 24 per cent on year-over-year basis as of April, and the average of the latest three months’ rates is 16.6 per cent below 2015’s same months.
Regionally, expansion in April was strong in the huge housing market of the South, where single-family starts for April were almost 16 per cent higher than a year ago, and the three-month averages for both single-family and multifamily starts are solidly greater compared to the same months in 2015.
Three-month averages for rates of permit issuance in the South have fallen compared to last year, though.
