By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
Housing starts ‘plummeted’ in August the Census Bureau said today, falling 14.4 percent from the revised seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,117,000 units in July to 956,000 units. The abrupt change, however was driven by a 31.5 percent decline in initial construction of buildings containing 5 or more units. Single-family construction starts were down only 2.4 percent. Not only that, but last month’s numbers were revised significantly higher.
The August New Residential Construction report, jointly issued by Census in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, revised the July housing starts upward from the original 1,093,000 annual pace reported last month, already a 15.7 percent increase over June. Despite the decrease in starts in August, the seasonally adjusted number was still 8.0 percent higher than the rate of 885,000 units reported in August 2013.
