A month-over-month rise in permit activity and a burst in completed construction was driven by increased apartment activity. Home builders broke ground on more homes.
U.S. housing units authorized by
permit-issuing places came to 112,100 units in October, bringing year-to-date volume to 1,067,200 through the end of last month.
The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly released the new construction report Friday.
Seasonally adjusted permits came in at an annual rate of 1.297 million.
The total rate ascended 6 percent from the upwardly revised level for September and was up a percent from the upwardly revised pace in October 2016.
On just one-unit properties, the rate inched up less than 2 percent from September. But on multifamily properties, the annual rate leapt by more than 13 percent.
The total rate in the West was 366,000, jumping from a month earlier by 13 percent — the most of any region. Permits ascended more than 4 percent from September in the Northeast to 126,000, while the rate of permits climbed nearly 4 percent to 192,000 in the Midwest, and the South rose 3 percent to 613,000.
A seasonally adjusted 152,000 U.S. housing units were authorized but not yet started as of Oct. 31, 2017.
The report indicated construction was started at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.290 million last month, soaring 14 percent from September but dipping 3 percent from the same month in 2016.
The Northeast was way out front of the month-over-month gain at 42 percent.
A statement from the National Association of Home Builders indicated October 2017’s starts were last this high in October 2016.
“As the job market and overall economy continue to firm, we should see demand for housing increase as we head into 2018,” NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz said in the statement.
A seasonally adjusted 1.096 million housing units were under construction at the end of the latest month.
October saw the construction of 111,600 housing units completed. For all of this year, 950,300 units have been completed.
Applying seasonal adjustments, the annual rate of completed construction was 1.232 million, 13 percent stronger than in the prior report and 16 percent more than the same month in 2016.
But the month-over-month increase was lopsided, with the one-unit rate up less than 3 percent and the apartment rate accelerating 38 percent.
The total rate in the Northeast was 163,000, more than doubling the preceding month’s rate. Completed construction climbed 22 percent in the West to a rate of 286,000, while it rose 7 percent in the South to 639,000.
But completed construction contracted 21 percent in the Midwest, leaving the rate at
144,000.
