Housing Starts Hit 4-Year High

• November 20, 2012

by UrbanTurf Staff

In another sign that the housing market is regaining health, housing starts reached their highest level in four years, according to a report out today.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, October housing starts were up 3.6 percent since September and almost 42 percent year-over-year, reaching a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 894,000. Starts for single-family homes fell 0.2 percent since August, but rose 35.3 percent year-over-year.

However, as the Wall Street Journal noted a couple months ago when starts began to rise, while the figures are optimistic, they are still quite a bit lower than the historical average:

While this year’s housing starts are up from a low of 478,000 in April 2009, they are still below the historical average. Builders have started construction on about 1.5 million new homes per year since 1959.

Still, the report today is the latest in a continued slew of good news for the nation’s housing market. A report out in October claimed that foreclosures in the country are at a 5-year low, and just yesterday, the National Association of Realtors reported that October marked the 16th month in a row of year-over-year increases for sales of previously owned homes.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/housing_starts_hit_4-year_high/6322