US market for housing sees solid recovery
THE US housing market continued to recover in August, with housing starts, completions and new home sales rising, data revealed yesterday.
Building permits slipped one per cent compared to July, Department of Commerce data showed, but this was the only negative piece of data – and still left them nearly a quarter up on August last year.
Backing up the positive picture, housing starts grew 2.3 per cent compared to July, putting them 29.1 per cent up on the year – while housing completions edged up 0.7 per cent between July and August, meaning they were 11.7 per cent higher than in the same month last year.
Home sales flew up at an annualised rate of 7.8 per cent between July and August, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), also released yesterday.
“The housing market recovery is becoming much more convincing,” said NAR economist Lawrence Yun.