U.S. Housing Starts Jump 9.3%, to Highest in Year
By Timothy R. Homan - Dec 20, 2011 9:55 AM ET .
Housing Starts in U.S. Increase to Highest Level in a Year
Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg
Housing starts increased 9.3 percent to a 685,000 Builders broke ground in November on more houses than at any time in the past 19 months, led by a surge in multifamily units, signaling the market is stabilizing heading into 2012.
Starts increased 9.3 percent to a 685,000 annual rate, exceeding the highest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the most since April 2010, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, also climbed to a more than one-year high.
Work on multifamily units like apartments and townhouses is growing as the rental market improves. Single-family-home construction may be starting to strengthen as lower home prices and borrowing costs near record lows draw in some buyers, even as builders face competition from existing houses as another wave of foreclosures throws more marked-down properties on the market.
“It’s a solid report,” said Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York, who had the highest forecast in the Bloomberg survey. “For months we’ve been flagging the strength in multifamily construction, but now we’re starting to get signs that single-family is pulling itself off the canvas.”
Stocks rose as the housing data added to recent evidence the world’s largest economy was strengthening. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 2.06 percent to 1,230.07 at 9:48 a.m. in New York. Treasury securities fell, sending the yield on the benchmark 10-year note up to 1.87 percent from 1.81 percent late yesterday.
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