Privately owned housing units authorized by building permits leaped 35.8 percent on an annual basis to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.017 million in April, and were up 14.3 percent from March, according to a monthly report released by the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The report also showed that new home construction in April fell by 16.5 percent month over month to a seasonally adjusted rate of 853,000, but remained 13.1 percent higher than a year before.
As the market continues to suffer from an acute inventory shortage, builders are beginning to respond by breaking ground on more homes. A recent analysis by RealtyTrac found that building permits reached their highest level in the first quarter of 2013 since the first quarter of 2008.
The foreclosure-data aggregator postulated that a recent uptick in home construction and planned home construction could offset what it’s observed to be a diminishing flow of foreclosures onto the market. Source: Census Bureau