American housing starts rally to almost 11-year maximum

In May, American homebuilding managed to jump to almost an 11-year maximum in the face of acceleration in both single-family as well as multi-family home construction, although a second straight monthly sink in permits dropped a hint that housing market activity would be still mild.

The previous month housing starts edged up by 5% to a seasonally updated annual rate of 1.350 million units, as the Commerce Department told on Tuesday. It turned out to be the highest value since July 2007. April’s data was updated a bit to display starts diving to 1.286 million units versus the previously reported tempo of 1.287 million units.

Building permits headed south 4.6% to 1.301 million units, which is the lowest value since September the previous year. Market experts surveyed by Reuters had predicted housing starts soaring to a tempo of 1.310 million units the previous month and also permits diving to a rate of 1.350 million units.

Single-family homebuilding, accounting for the largest share of the housing market, managed to ascend by 3.9% hitting 936,000 units the previous month.

Single-family home construction went up in the Northeast and Midwest, although went down in the South and West. Evidently, it has lost momentum as soon as it demonstrated a tempo of 948,000 units last November that appeared to be the strongest value for more than 10 years.

As a matter of fact, in May, permits to build single-family homes went down about 2.2% to a tempo of up to 844,000 units, which is an eight-month minimum. Obviously, with permits definitely lagging starts, single-family homebuilding could speed down in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, revenues on American Treasuries kept to lower levels following the data. As for American stock index futures, they edged down due to the fact that US-China trade tensions strengthened , while the evergreen buck rallied versus its key rivals.