According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,U.S. housing starts rose 22.7% from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,091,000 in November, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That was higher than the 952,000 forecast by economists and brought the average pace of starts for the past three months to 951,000.
Details of the report showed broad strength for housing. Starts for single-family homes, a bigger and more stable segment of the market, also rose to their highest level in nearly six years.
November building permits, an indicator of future construction, fell slightly to the still-elevated level of 1,007,000. Permits had jumped 6.7% in October.
Details of the report showed broad strength for housing. Starts for single-family homes, a bigger and more stable segment of the market, also rose to their highest level in nearly six years.
November building permits, an indicator of future construction, fell slightly to the still-elevated level of 1,007,000. Permits had jumped 6.7% in October.
The report showed home building returning to the brisk pace seen early this year, before the sector's recovery took a hit from rising interest rates. Builders broke ground on an average 869,000 homes between June and August.
"The recovery trend has resumed," said Alan Levenson, chief economist at T. Rowe Price Associates.
That is good news for the wider economy, which benefits from a stronger housing sector through job creation and demand for a broad array of building materials and household goods. The data prompted several upgrades to estimates of economic growth in the final three months of the year. Barclays raised its forecast to 2.3% from 2.2%, while Morgan Stanley upped its estimate to 2% from 1.9%.
The uptick in housing could also reassure Federal Reserve officials that the recovery is gaining strength as they conclude a two-day meeting Wednesday, where they'll decide whether to start reining in their $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program. They have said they could do so in the "coming months."
