Building permits for privately owned housing units came in at an annual rate of 1.343 million in June.
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Permits for future home construction increased 7.4 percent to a 1.34 million-unit rate, which the highest level since July 2007, and have been above a 1 million-unit pace since July.
Meanwhile, the report said single-family housing starts edged down 0.9 percent to a rate of 685,000 in June from the revised May figure of 691,000.
Most of the gains in starts and permits were in multifamily, not single-family contruction.
“While builders are reporting overall confidence in the housing market, they continue to note difficulties accessing land and labor”, said NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.
Regionally in June, combined single- and multifamily starts rose by 35.5% in the Northeast and 13.5% in the South. The Midwest and West posted respective losses of 0.7% and 6%. Permits were up 6% year-over-year.
The consensus estimate had been for a print of 1.1m.
“All the action is in the multi-family components, because activity has been massively distorted by a surge in activity in New York ahead of the scheduled expiration of a tax-break for multi-family developments on June 15”, he wrote. The Northeast, Midwest, South and West posted respective permit gains of 2.8 percent, 2.9 percent, 10.4 percent and 9.5 percent.
Privately owned housing units that are authorized by building permits now stand at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1,343,000 units.
Single-family housing completions in June were at a rate of 647,000; this is 0.3 % (±9.3%) below the revised May rate of 649,000.
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In many ways, it mirrors the encouraging Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo released yesterday. We further expect multifamily growth to cool given the rising volume of units in the production pipeline.
