Housing starts dropped 9.9 percent month over month in June, but were up 10.4 percent from a year ago, according to a monthly report from the U.S. Census Bureau that was released today.
New-home construction registered a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 836,000 homes in June, the Census Bureau said.
That fell short of analysts’ expectations, but, Paul Diggle, an economist at Capital Economics, noted in a tweet that the drop mostly “reflects characteristically volatile multifamily sector, not renewed weakness” in the construction sector.
The inventory shortage that many experts say constrained home sales in early 2013 has eased recently as more sellers have listed their homes and construction has recovered. Source: U.S. Census Bureau