Housing starts up in June-Can it continue?
There’s been a lot of conversations on blogs about the real estate market and exactly where we’re at and if we’re coming out of it. Sales of exsiting homes have jumped considerably over the last coupld of months and now this report from MarketWatch.
RISMEDIA, July 20, 2009-(MarketWatch)-New construction of U.S. houses expanded for the second straight month in June after hitting a record low in April, the Commerce Department estimated Friday.
Starts rose 3.6% in June to a seasonally adjusted 582,000 annualized units stronger than the 531,000 pace expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. This is the highest level of starts since last November.
Starts of new single-family homes rose by 14.4% to 470,000 in June, while starts of large apartment units fell 29.4% to 101,000. Building permits, a leading indicator of housing construction, rose 8.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 563,000. This is the highest level of permits since December.
Could we really be coming out of the real estate slump? Some say yes while others tell us to consider the number of “bank owned” homes that are still being help by the bank waiting to be released. In Maricopa county alone there is over 50,000 homes that have not been placed on the market and some day will become available.
