Housing starts climbed 6.3 percent to a 1.02 million annualized rate from a 957,000 pace in August, the Commerce Department reported today in Washington. The reading was in line with the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg which projected 1 million. Work increased on multifamily and one-family homes.
The drop in mortgage rates in recent weeks will probably underpin sales, giving builders reason to take on more projects. Sustained job gains that fuel faster wage growth would help give the market an additional boost that would include more first- time home buyers.
“The trend in starts continues to be up,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, Ohio. “As the job market’s gotten better, as the mortgage rates have remained low and in the last week gone even lower, the underlying demand for single-family homes has improved.”
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