September Construction Data Mixed

Privately-owned housing starts inrnSeptember rose 15.0 percent above starts in August to a seasonally adjusted annualrnrate of 658,000 units.  According to thernjoint monthly report from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housingrnand Urban Development released Wednesday, this was also an increase of 10.2rnpercent from the annual rate of housing starts in September 2010.   The August housing start figure was revised upwardrnin the current report from a preliminary estimate of 571,000 reported lastrnmonth to 572,000. </p

Single-family housing starts were at arnrate of 425,000, up 1.7 percent from the August figure of 418,000.  Starts for buildings with five units or morernwere at the rate of 227,000 dramatically higher than the downwardly revisedrnfigure of 148,000 in August.  </p

Housing Starts</p

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Permits for privately owned housingrnunits were issued at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 594,000, 5 percentrnbelow the revised August rate of 625,000 (revised substantially upward fromrn571,000).  One year ago the rate of authorizationsrnwas at an annual rate of 562,000</p

The rate of single family permits wasrn417,000 a 0.2 percent drop from August while multi-family permits were at thernrate of 158,000 compared to 178,000 in August.</p

Housing completions in September were atrna rate of 647,000, up 2.1 percent from August and 2.1 percent higher than onernyear earlier.</p

Construction has not yet started on approximatelyrn78,300 permits issued earlier, down from 86,200 in August.  Over one third (31,000) of these backloggedrnpermits are for multi-family structures.</p

Total housing starts were up in allrnregions with the largest increase noted in the West at 18.1 percent.  Single family starts rose 46 percent in thernMidwest and over 20 percent in the Northeast. rnPermits were up in the Northeast (4.9 percent) and the Midwest (0.9 percent)rnbut fell in the South (-7.0 percent) and the West (-9 percent).</p

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