Building Permits Up 29.4%, New Housing Starts up 15.1% from 1-Year Ago

Posted on July 21, 2015 Updated on July 21, 2015

We don’t have everything we’d like in the housing market, but we do keep seeing progress. Last week gave us Housing Starts up 9.8% in June, reaching a 1.174 million annual rate. Negative types will point out that all the gain came from multi-family units (true), but the fact is, single-family starts are up 14.7% in the past year and the pace of starts from April to June was the fastest since 2007. Economists point out that the underlying trend has been heading upward since 2011, and they see that trend continuing. Hey, the number of homes under construction rose 0.9% in June and is now 15.1% ahead of where it was a year ago.

Best news of all? Building Permits shot up 7.4% in June, following their 9.6% May hike and 9.8% gain in April. That adds up to 29.4% growth in the last three months, a pace not seen since 1982. At a 1.343 million annual rate, permits sit at their highest level since July 2007. This of course bodes well for future gains in home building. No wonder the National Association of Home Builders builder confidence index came in at 60 for July, indicating that the solid majority of those who responded reported good market conditions. The Mortgage Bankers Association Builder Application Survey for June had mortgage applications for new homes up by 1%, month-to-month.