Housing construction slows on drop in apartment building

“That said, the fact that single-family starts and permits both rose in three out of four regions in June is a positive sign that’s in keeping with our forecast as well as recent surveys in which single-family builders have registered an increasingly positive outlook.”

{mosads}Meanwhile, the pace of single-family production held fairly even, with a decline of less than 1 percentage point.

Applications for permits to build single-family homes rose for the third straight month to 624,000, a slight increase from May but the best pace since May 2008. 

Overall, permits fell 7.5 percent to 911,000 in June from 985,000 in May, which were revised higher, all because of the reduction in apartment construction. Permits for the multifamily sector fell 21.4 percent. 

“While demand for new homes and apartments has grown considerably over the past year, builders are still being very careful not to get ahead of the market, and today’s report reflects that cautious approach,” said Rick Judson, chairman of the NAHB and a homebuilder from Charlotte, N.C.

Regionally, combined starts activity declined 12.1 percent in the Northeast, 7.4 percent in the Midwest, 12 percent in the South and 5.4 percent in the West.

Permits, overall, were down in three regions — 4.6 percent in the Midwest, 11.2 percent in the South and 7.2 percent in the West. 

But they were up 5.9 percent in the Northeast.

Despite June’s decline, builders started work on 10 percent more homes last month compared to a year earlier, and permits are up 16 percent above last year’s levels.