Housing Starts Strongest in Nearly Two Years

A pickup in job growth and record-low mortgage rates helped fast-track housing starts to their strongest performance in nearly two years in November, with rental property construction ahead of single-family home starts.

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The ""Commerce Department"":http://www.commerce.gov/ reported the data Tuesday via the Census Bureau.

Housing starts surged by 9.3 percent month-over-month to hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 685,000, up from 627,000 in October.

Multifamily starts ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô reflective of rental property demand ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ô moved forward by 25.3 percent month-over-month, even while single-family homes went up 2.3 from October, a considerable lead for home construction.

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Housing completions meanwhile moved to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 542,000, 5.6 percent below October estimates and 1.6 percent below the annual rate of 551,000 for November.

""Homebuilding is through the worst and is now steadily improving, spurred on by
greater demand triggered by record low mortgage rates and faster jobs growth,"" ""Paul Diggle"":http://www.capitaleconomics.com/staff/property-economics/paul-diggle.html, a U.S. economist with consultancy ""Capital Economics"":http://www.capitaleconomics.com/, wrote in a note.

""It's a solid report,"" _Bloomberg News_ quoted Brian Jones, a senior U.S. economist with ""Societe Generale"":http://www.sgcib.com/, as saying. ""For months we've been flagging the strength in multifamily construction, but now we're starting to get signs that single-family is pulling itself off the canvas.""

Continuing trouble in the euro zone helps keep mortgage rates at record lows, with investors staying near U.S. Treasury debt, widening Treasury yields in the process.

The ""Labor Department"":http://www.dol.gov/ encouraged market outlook by revealing that the U.S. economy added 140,000 private-sector jobs over November.

""The upshot is that, while the latest figures are very encouraging, we aren't getting too carried away about the prospects for homebuilding,"" Diggle added. ""Housing starts will continue to improve, but they may not return to the one million mark until 2015 at the earliest.""