WASHINGTON – October housing starts skyrocketed 25.5%, the biggest increase since 1982, data reported by the Commerce Department Thursday morning showed.
The October level of seasonally adjusted housing starts, at a 1.323 million annual rate, brought new housing production to a post-financial-crisis high, close to the 1.5 million rate that housing analysts consider to be sufficient to meet demand.
Single family starts rose 10.7% to an 869,000 rate, 23.3% above that of a year earlier. To round out the strong report, housing completions topped a million unit rate, up 5.5% to 1.055 million.
Building permits rose 0.3% in October to an annual rate of 1.229 million.
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