Oct. Housing Starts Surge 25.5%; Permits Rise 0.3%

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.

Market News International is a real-time global news service for fixed-income and foreign exchange market professionals. See www.marketnews.com.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM BOND BUYER