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Weekly jobless claims rose slightly to 238,000, above the 235,000 forecast. May housing starts dropped 5.5% to an annual rate of 1.27 million, below expectations. Building permits fell 3.8%, the lowest in four years. ... Economic data released Thursday morning revealed slightly higher-than-expected weekly unemployment claims, sharp contractions in housing starts and building permits, and a drop in a business outlook survey within the Philadelphia Federal Reserve District. Thursday’s Economic Releases: Key Highlights.. The number of people filing for jobless claims in the U.S. fell by 5,000 to 238,000 in the week ending June 15, slightly exceeding market expectations of...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published a jobs report yesterday [DATA LINK] that has stunned the professional financial class. However, those who have followed the BLS data assemblies were laughing – not surprised. Eventually, if this continues, the BLS pretzel logic will start using terms like “eleventy.” Throughout 2022, the BLS modified the underlying data they used to assemble their jobs reporting. The latest release shows that 517,000 jobs were gained in the labor market, despite every other economic indicator showing we are in an economy of contraction. The question becomes, why the disconnect? There are two surveys that...

U.S. single-family homebuilding and permits surged to more than 10-year highs in November, in a hopeful sign for a housing market that has been hobbled by supply constraints. Builders have struggled to meet robust demand for housing, which is being fueled by a labor market near full employment. Land and skilled labor have been in short supply, while lumber price increases have accelerated. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday that single-family homebuilding, which accounts for the largest share of the housing market, jumped 5.3 percent to a rate of 930,000 units. That was the highest level since September 2007.

Groundbreakings on new homes dropped by a sharp 17% in February, the U.S. Commerce Department said Tuesday. February’s housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted, annual rate of 897,000, well below January’s estimate of 1.081 million, though only 3.3% below the pace in February 2014. The numbers missed–by a long shot–the 1.048 million starts economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast ahead of the release. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that builder confidence in the market for newly constructed, single-family homes dropped by two points in March to a level of 53, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells...

Earlier Thursday morning we saw that housing starts unexpectedly plunged 9.3% to an annualized rate of 893,000. On the face of it, the report was ugly, considering all the talk about the recent housing snapback. It's important to note that the miss was entirely due to one region: the South. Housing starts plunged 29.6% in the South, driven by weakness in single-family units. "All the hit is in the south, where starts plunged by 29.6%, the biggest ever monthly drop, despite gains in each other region," wrote Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Original post: Nobody's expecting too much. 575K on an annualized rate is the prediction. That's just up from the previous 560K, but we're still bouncing around all-time historical lows. Number out in a moment. Update: Okay, not as horrible as it could have been. Housing starts came in at an annualized 629K pace, a 14.6% jump rom a revised 549K. Permits of 624K was also ahead of expectations of 595K.

Fannie Mae: Housing starts to triple by 2013 to nearly 1.5 millionby CHRISTINE RICCIARDI Wednesday, January 19th, 2011, 11:44 am Despite the still fragile housing market, Fannie Mae expects housing starts to triple by 2013. According to the agency's economic outlook, housing starts are predicted to increase 17.3% and hit 710,000 this year, with another 47% increase to 1.1 million in 2012 and another gain of 42% in 2013 to nearly 1.5 million. In 2010, there were about 510,000 housing starts. "We expect a small rise in home sales this year, but significant amounts of supply and shadow inventory of...

Housing starts fall back to lowest level in six months October data show starts down 10.6% and building permits off 4% By Greg Robb, MarketWatch WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- In a blow to the optimism that had surrounded the U.S. housing sector in recent months, housing starts fell a sharp 10.6% in October, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. New construction on housing units dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000, the lowest level since April. The 10.6% drop was the biggest percentage decline for starts since January. Both single-family homes and multifamily units declined last month. Prior to the...

Housing Numbers Were Skewed, Lehman Says (RTTNews) - Housing starts were biased higher in June due to a change in the building code in New York City, observe the analysts at Lehman Brothers. Starts jumped 9.1% to 1.066 million in June as multi-family construction in the Northeast surged 102.6%. Effective July 1, the 421-a tax incentive program for multi-family construction in NYC will expire, encouraging builders to rush to start construction. This also pushed up permits for multi-family construction in the Northeast, which jumped 73%, as developers rushed to lay foundation after receiving permits. We expect a reversal in multi-family...

U.S. home construction starts were up 3 percent in October, the biggest monthly gain in eight months, but building permits were down 6.6 percent to a level not seen in 14 years, a government report on Tuesday showed. The Commerce Department said housing starts set at an annual pace of 1.229 million units in October from a 1.193 million unit pace in September. It was the biggest monthly increase since February and came after starts tumbled 11.4 percent the prior month. Economists were expecting to see a slight decrease in starts to a 1.17 million unit pace from the initially...

WASHINGTON -- Market experts expecting the home construction lull to end some time soon are going to have to wait longer than hoped. The chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders said new home construction in the U.S. may take until 2011 to return to last year's level. According to the NAHB, monthly construction starts would need to jump by 21 percent to reach David Seiders' benchmark for full recovery — 1.85 million. There were 1.53 million construction stats in April, the Commerce Department reported. At the height of the five-year housing boom in January 2006, construction began...

U.S. Jan. housing starts highest since 1973 By Rex Nutting Last Update: 8:30 AM ET Feb 16, 2006 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - New construction of U.S. homes soared 14.5% in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.276 million, aided by the warmest weather of any January on record. It's the highest rate for seasonally adjusted starts since March 1973. The percentage gain was the largest in nearly 12 years, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Starts of new single-family homes rose 12.8% to a record seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.819 million in January. The gain in housing starts far...

Wholesale prices posted their biggest drop in 2 1/2 years while housing activity stayed strong, two economic reports showed Tuesday. The producer price index sank 0.7% in November, thanks to a 4% drop in energy costs, the Labor Department said. "It showed some pretty big declines. That's always welcome," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist with PNC Financial Services.

No boom lasts forever, and in countries like Britain and Australia, the housing market has suddenly turned lower, leading to discussions of how a plunge can be avoided and what will happen if it is not. The American housing market received a scare yesterday, with a report that the pace of new-home sales slipped in November as the median price of a new home fell to the lowest level in a year. But mortgage applications indicate that a rebound has begun, and in any case, prices of new homes can fail to capture price trends for existing homes in areas...

<p>U.S. May Housing Starts Fall 0.7% to 1.967 Mln Rate (Update1) June 16 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. homebuilders began work on more houses than expected in May, and building permits rose to the highest level in more than 30 years, suggesting that rising mortgage rates have yet to curb demand, a government report said.</p>

<p>U.S. April Housing Starts Fall 2.1% to 1.969 Mln Rate (Update1) May 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. housing starts fell 2.1 percent in April, the third decline in four months, as higher mortgage rates deterred some homebuilders from beginning work on projects they haven't yet sold, a government report showed.</p>

NEW YORK — Now is not the time to put the "for sale" sign out on U.S. home builder stocks. A few months ago, there were plenty of pundits prepared to predict that the housing industry was about to face a bust. They said that house prices in recent years had risen to excessive levels and suggested the tipping point would be higher interest rates. But with the economic recovery producing few new jobs, home loan rates sinking again, and the Federal Reserve (search) apparently in no hurry to push rates higher any time soon, the doomsayers are less vocal....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. builders broke ground on new homes at a faster-than-expected pace in December, closing out the best year for housing since 1978 on an upbeat note, a government report showed on Wednesday. The Commerce Department said December housing starts rose 1.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted 2.088 million annual rate, the quickest pace since February 1984. The gain defied Wall Street analysts' expectations for a decline in starts and was led by a gain in multi-family dwellings. Single-family housing starts actually dipped slightly from the November rate. November starts were revised slightly lower, to a 2.054 million...

<p>U.S. December Housing Starts Rise to 2.088 Million (Update1) Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. housing starts unexpectedly rose to a 2.088 million annual rate last month, capping the strongest year for the industry since 1978, a government report showed.</p> <p>The December pace was the fastest since February 1984 and brought the total number of homes started in 2003 to 1.848 million, the Commerce Department said in Washington. In November, starts increased to a 2.054 million annual rate.</p>

Housing starts hit 20-year high Single-family construction rises to all-time record By Rex Nutting, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 9:38 AM ET Dec. 16, 2003 WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) - Construction of new homes in the United States rose about 4.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 2.07 million in November, the highest in nearly 20 years, the Commerce Department estimated Tuesday. The number of single-family homes started by builders rose about 3.3 percent to a record 1.69 million seasonally adjusted annualized rate. Construction of large apartment buildings rose about 6.3 percent to a 335,000 pace. October's home starts were revised higher...