U.S. Housing Starts Declined 0.9% in June
July 17 2019 - 8:00AM
Dow Jones News
By Harriet Torry and Sarah Chaney
Home building in the U.S. declined in June, a fresh sign of
weakness in the housing market.
Housing starts, a measure of new home construction, fell 0.9% in
June from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of
1.253 million, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
Residential building permits, which can signal how much
construction is in the pipeline, dropped 6.1% from May to an annual
pace of 1.220 million. That was the biggest monthly drop since
March 2016.
Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a
0.7% decrease for starts and a 0.3% decrease for permits.
Housing-starts data are volatile from month to month and can be
subject to large revisions. June's 0.9% decline for starts came
with a margin of error of 7.9 percentage points.
Starts were up 6.2% from June last year. Building permits were
down 6.6% from June 2018.
The overall housing sector has struggled with high prices and
low inventory, even with a strong labor market, low borrowing costs
and rising incomes.
The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage eased further
in June to 3.73% in the final week of the month, according to
Freddie Mac, the lowest rate since late 2016.
Cooling mortgage rates in recent months could be nudging the
housing market toward a modest spring performance. Sales of
previously owned homes rose 2.5% in May from the prior month, the
National Association of Realtors said last month.
The Commerce report can be found at
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 17, 2019 08:45 ET (12:45 GMT)
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