US Housing Starts Drop in April

Ground-breaking for new U.S. homes plummeted more than expected in April from an almost five-year high, but applications to build new homes shows the housing sector could still contribute to the strengthening economic recovery.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday that starts at building sites for homes fell 16.5 percent last month to a 853,000-unit annual rate. That was below analysts’ expectations of a 945,000-unit rate.

The housing recovery, driven by growing demand and record-low mortgage rates, has started to boost other sectors of the economy in the first part of the year.

Builders appear to be ramping up for more construction projects. Newly issued building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose 14.3 percent from a month earlier to an annual rate of 1.017 million, the highest level since June 2008.

Permits for single-family homes, which comprise about two thirds of the total, rose 3 percent to a 617,000-unit rate, the highest since May 2008.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza