The bad news is that home builders started construction on fewer homes last month. The good news is that new permits for home construction were solidly higher.
In May, the number of building permits authorized for
privately-owned housing units worked out to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.275 million.
Activity shot up from the previous month, when the seasonally adjusted rate was 1.140 million. April’s rate was originally reported at
1.143 million.
The spike was even more dramatic compared to the same month last year, a month that saw a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
1.017 million.
The housing data was released Tuesday by the
Census Bureau.
Single-family permits increased 3 percent from the revised figure for April to 0.683 million. The smaller increase indicates that most of last month’s improvement was in multi-unit permits.
In the Northeast,
total permits skyrocketed 78 percent between April and May — more than in any other region.
The worst performance was in the South, where permits fell four percent.
Moving on to housing starts, the seasonally adjusted annual rate for May 2015 was 1.036 million — tumbling from
1.165 million a month earlier. The prior-month number was originally reported at 1.135 million.
Housing starts were up, however, from 0.986 million a year earlier.
Single-family housing starts fell five percent from April to 0.680 million.
Total housing starts sank 27 percent in the Northeast, more than any other area. With just a five percent drop from April, the South has the smallest decline.
Home builders completed new construction at an annual pace of 1.034 million, up
five percent on a month-over-month basis and 15 percent better on a year-over-year basis.
Single-family homes were completed at a rate of 0.635 million in May, five percent slower than in the previous report.
A 39 percent jump in the Northeast was the biggest month-over-month increase in total housing completions for any region. But in the Midwest, housing completions were down 14 percent, the only area with deterioration.
