WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. builders started work on more homes and apartments last month and requested more permits to build single-family homes. The increases suggest the battered housing market is healing.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that builders broke ground in April at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 717,000 homes. That's a 2.6 percent increase from an upwardly revised March figure and near January's three-year high of 720,000. Construction rose for both single-family homes and apartments.

Building permits, a gauge of future construction, fell last month from a 3 ½ year high to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 715,000. But that was because of a 23 percent drop in the volatile apartment category. Permits for single-family homes rose almost 2 percent.

Even with the gains, the rate of construction and the level of permits requested remain roughly half the pace considered healthy. But the increase, along with rising builder confidence and stronger job growth, is a hopeful sign that the home market may finally be starting to recover nearly five years after the housing bubble burst.

"We continue to believe that the bottom has been put in for housing ... and while improvement will not be vicious nor rapid, improvement it still will be," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at BTIG, an institutional brokerage.

Builders have grown more confident since last fall, in part because more people have expressed interest in buying a home. In May, builder optimism rose to the highest level in five years, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index

 

 

 

 

 
This post has been included in Arizona Real Estate News
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1 Comments on US housing starts rose to 717,000 in April

MAY
16
2012
818,352 Points Outside Blog Called Shot Master

We need some good news.  Listings are gold right now as inventory is going way down in Arizona.
8:46am • #1


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