Overall new housing construction in August rose 2.3 percent, according to the latest figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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Overall new housing construction in August rose 2.3 percent, according to the latest figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
New-home starts reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 750,000, up from the revised July estimate of 733,000. The latest rate is 29.1 percent above the August 2011 rate of 581,000. Also, single-family housing starts in August were at a rate of 535,000, which is 5.5 percent above the revised July figure of 507,000.
Cheaper properties and mortgage rates near all-time lows are driving sales at companies like Toll Brothers Inc., one of the nation's leading home builders, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Yet hurdles like tighter credit standards and a high unemployment rate remain.
"Builders across the country have been reporting noticeable improvement in the number of serious buyers who are in the market for a new home, and today's report shows that this is translating to some welcome gains in construction activity," said Barry Rutenberg, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Gainesville, Fla. "While there is still plenty of room for improvement, it's encouraging to see this continuing trend that is spurring much-needed job growth."
"The pace of overall housing production has been edging gradually upward all year as consumers become more confident in their local housing markets, and the latest data are further evidence that the housing recovery is here to stay," said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. "That said, the pace of this recovery continues to be constrained by various hurdles, including a tough lending environment, inaccurate appraisals and more recently, rising prices on key building materials."