Dive Brief:

• Single-family starts in August were at an annual rate of 628,000 and were 17% above year-before numbers.
• The change was July starts was only "an uptick," not a significant gain.
• The single-family annual rate has been mostly between 400,000 and 600,000 every month since 2009.

Dive Insight:

There's always more than one way to look at statistics, and Peter Muoio, who is a senior principal and an economist at Auction.com Research, is choosing to take a long view that sees housing still waiting to really take off in the recovery. Certainly, the annual start rates published every month have been better since the recovery started its slow progress, but Muoio said he thinks the sector is actually stagnant, partly because of rising interest rates and partly because existing homes are still plentiful at a 25% discount to new homes.