Dive Brief:
- Federal data shows housing starts jumped by 15.7% from June to an annual pace of 1.1 million in July, the second time this year they have gone into seven figures.
- Year-to-data numbers indicate that apartments are getting a bigger piece of the increase than single-family building, with total starts through last month up about 9%. Single-family starts are up about 3%.
- Building permits in July were issued at a 1.1 million annual pace, which was the fifth month this year when permits hit or topped 1 million.
Dive Insight:
It's difficult to make any kind of prediction because of the up-and-down nature of single-family home starts this year. Economists in the media gave an average prediction of 965,000, which turned out to be far too low.