Housing starts climbed 5.2% in July to 1.428 million units, according to yahoo!finance. Economists expected housing starts to fall to an annual rate of 1.290 million units.
Applications for building permits, a good indication of future activity, fell 2.8% to 1.354 million units in July.
Single-family housing starts rose 2.8% to a rate of 939,000 units. Multifamily starts rose 11.6% to a rate of 470,000 units, with new apartment construction surging more than 50% during the past two months. Building permits for single-family homes rose 0.5% to a rate of 870,000 units, and permits for multifamily homes fell nearly 10% to a rate of 430,000 units.
The completions rate for the single-family housing segment rose 11.6% to 1.022 million units in July after falling to 916,000 units in June.
The average 30-year fixed-mortgage rate fell to 6.58% last week, which is the lowest level since October 2024. However, mortgage rates still are well above what they were just before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
