July 19, 2011 (Chris Moore)

New residential housing starts made solid gains in June as both single-family and multi-family dwellings experienced large boosts, but housing completions remain far below the rates experienced a year ago, according to the latest data released by the Census Bureau.

Privately owned housing starts increased by 14.6 percent in June compared to May with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 629,000 starts reported in June compared to May’s revised estimate of 549,000 housing starts. Housing starts were a whopping 16.7 percent higher than June 2010’s rate of 539,000 housing starts.

Single-family housing starts in June increased from May’s revised figure of 414,000 to 453,000, an increase of 9.4 percent, and multi-family dwellings increased from 134,000 starts in May to 170,000 in June.

Building permits in June were slightly higher than May as builders were authorized a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 624,000 permits in June compared to 609,000 in May, an increase of 2.5 percent. It was also an increase from June of last year, which had an estimated 585,000 permits authorized.

Single-family building permit authorizations were 0.2 percent higher in June than May with 407,000 permits authorized compared to a revised 406,000 in May. Multi-family dwelling permits in June increased to 198,000 authorizations compared to 190,000 in May.

Housing completions declined in June compared to May with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 535,000 completions reported compared to May’s 544,000 completions, but far below the June 2010 rate of 881,000 completions.

Single-family completions in June were at a rate of 436,000, unchanged from May’s revised rate of 436,000. Multi-family completions in June were at a rate of 89,000, a large drop compared to May’s rate of 108,000 completions.

Regionally, housing starts increased in all four regions with the Northeast and the Midwest experiencing the largest gains of 35.1 percent and 25.3 percent, respectively, with the South and West experiencing gains of 10.6 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively. All regions experienced increases compared to the same month last year.

Building permit authorizations increased in three of the four regions in June compared to May. In the Midwest, authorizations increased 5.2 percent, in the South authorizations increased 5.5 percent and the West saw a modest gain of 1.4 percent. The Northeast reported a decrease of 10.0 percent in building permit authorizations.

Tags: housing starts, single-family homes, multi-family dwellings, building permits, housing completions

Source:
Census Bureau