The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Tuesday morning that new housing starts in October slipped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.06 million. That was a decrease of 11% from the downwardly revised September rate of 1.191 million and a decrease of 1.8% compared with the October 2014 rate of 1.079 million. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists expected a rate of around 1.162 million.
The revision to the September rate dropped 15,000 new housing starts from the previously reported total.
The seasonally adjusted rate of new building permits rose in October to 1.15 million, up 4.1% from the upwardly revised September rate of 1.105 million and 2.7% above the October 2014 rate of 1.12 million. The consensus estimate called for 1.15 million new building permits.
Single-family housing starts dropped to an annualized rate of 722,000 in October, down 2.4% from the revised September rate of 740,000.
Permits for new single-family homes rose 2.4% month over month to an adjusted annual rate of 711,000 from a revised total of 694,000 in September.
Multi-family starts for buildings with five or more units, a more volatile number than single-family starts, rose by 27.1% year over year in October and rose by 1.4% compared with September.
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