U.S. housing starts jump 5.6 percent
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
WASHINGTON, July 21 -Spurred by lower interest rates and a strong economy, construction starts on new homes and apartments soared in June, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Total starts rose 5.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.615 million units last month, the second-highest this year after February's 1.616 million. Starts fell 1.0 percent in May.
THE JUNE FIGURE was well ahead of the 1.56 million that Wall Street analysts had predicted.
The department said starts in June were buoyed by a 2.5 percent increase in the construction of single-family homes, to a 1.25 million annual rate, and a 17.4 percent increase in apartment-building, to an annual rate of 365,000 units. June starts were 7.5 percent above the pace of June 1997, when the annual rate of starts was 1.502 million.
There were increases in every region except the Northeast. In the West starts rose 9.4 percent to an annual rate of 409,000.
They rose 8.4 percent in the South to a rate of 760,000, and 1.6 percent in the Midwest to 310,000. But the Northeast saw a 9.3 percent fall to 136,000.
The department also reported that permit applications fell 1.7 percent last month to an annual rate of 1.517 million.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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