The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported Friday morning that new housing starts in May dipped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.164 million. That was a decrease of 0.3% from the downwardly revised April rate of 1.167 million but an increase of 9.5% compared with the May 2015 rate of 1.062 million. The consensus estimate from a survey of economists called for around 1.15 million.
The revision to the April rate shed 5,000 new housing starts from the previously reported total.
The seasonally adjusted rate of new building permits rose in March to 1.138 million, up 0.7% from the upwardly revised April rate of 1.13 million but 10.1% below the May 2015 rate of 1.266 million. The consensus estimate called for 1.4 million new building permits.
Single-family housing starts rose to an annualized rate of 764,000 in May, up 0.3% from the revised April rate of 762,000. Single-family starts rose about 4.6% year over year in May.
Permits for new single-family homes fell 2% month over month in May, to an adjusted annual rate of 726,000, from a revised total of 741,000 in April.
Multi-family starts for buildings with five or more units rose by 10% year over year in May and by 1.3% compared with April.
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