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Economy in Brief

Total Housing Starts Uptick All Multi-Family, Single-Family Down
by Tom Moeller July 18, 2007

Housing starts rose 2.3% during June to 1.467M and slightly beat Consensus expectations for 1.45M starts. The increase did little to dampen this year’s pace of 20%+ y/y declines.

The increase in June starts was all in multi-family structures. These rose 12.5% to 316,000 but essentially have been moving sideways.

Single-family starts slipped 0.2% to 1.15M, down for the third month in a row.

By region, single-family housing starts in the South fell a hard 4.6% (-27.2% y/y). Single-family starts in the Northeast rose 0.9% (19.6% y/y) and starts in the Midwest rose 3.1% (-21.7% y/y). Out West starts recovered 6.7% (-20.3% y/y).

Today’s testimony by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke can be found here.

Housing Starts (000s, AR) June May Y/Y 2006 2005 2004
Total 1,467 1,434 -19.4% 1,819 2,073 1,950
  Single-family 1,151 1,153 -21.6% 1,478 1,719 1,604
  Multi-family 316 281 -9.7% 341 354 345
Building Permits 1,596 1,513 -24.3% 1,834 2,159 2,058
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