Aarthi Swaminathan of MarketWatch is reporting that U.S. housing starts have surged to their highest level since May. She writes:
The numbers: Construction of new homes rose 14.8% in November, as builders scaled up new projects.
The pace of construction increased as builders saw strong home-buying demand, amid a shortage of homes for sale.
So-called housing starts rose to 1.56 million annual pace from 1.36 million in November, the government said Tuesday. That’s how many houses would be built over an entire year if construction took place at the same rate in every month as it did in November.
Housing starts were last at this level in May 2023. But starts are down from a peak of 1.8 million in April 2022. […]
“A little bit of drama in U.S. housing starts today,” Ali Jaffery at CIBC Economics wrote in a note.
“Housing starts have been volatile in recent months,” he explained. “While mortgage rates have eased substantially since their peak in late October, today’s release likely reflects noise rather than the influence of gradually improving demand. We expect a pullback next month.”
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