US Housing Starts Fall in June

July 17, 2014 Share Print 0

U.S. housing starts and building permits unexpectedly fell in June, suggesting the housing market recovery was struggling to get back on track

after stalling in late 2013.

Groundbreaking declined 9.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual 893,000 million unit-pace, the lowest since September, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. April’s starts were revised to show a steeper 7.3 percent fall instead of the previously reported 6.5 percent drop.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts rising to a 1.02 million-unit rate last month.

Housing has been constrained by higher mortgage rates. A shortage of properties for sale has pushed up prices, reducing affordability for many.

But there are glimmers of hope for the sector. A survey on Wednesday showed confidence among single-family home builders hit a six-month high in July, amid optimism over sales over the next six months.

Groundbreaking for single-family homes, the largest part of the market, tumbled 9.0 percent in June to a 575,000-unit pace, the lowest since November 2012. Single-family starts in the South dropped to their lowest level in two years.

Starts for the volatile multi-family homes segment dropped 9.9 percent to a 318,000-unit rate.

Permits fell 4.2 percent to a 963,000-unit pace in June.

via Reuters

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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.