Builders got a bit of good news today. The Commerce Department reported that nationwide housing starts rose 0.3 percent to 610,000 (that's a seasonally adjusted annual rate), well above expectations and the second month in a row for an increase. In previous months builders had relied heavily on construction of rental apartments, but the gains last month happened in large part due to the strength of straight-out home sales. Multi-family starts fell 9.7 percent last month, while multi-family permits fell 20.2 percent.
In addition, according to a Wells Fargo Securities report using data from Commerce along with the National Association of Home Builders, after five consecutive months of declines, single-family building permits rose 0.5 percent.
Despite the unexpected gains, the Wells economists who prepared the report still say that that a recovery in housing is going to be "agonizingly slow."
