Housing Starts Jump 9.1%; Single-Family Home Starts Lag

New housing starts surged in June led by more multifamily construction, but single-family home starts fell, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Overall starts jumped 9.1% to an annual rate of 1.066 million, from a revised 977,000 pace in May, Commerce said.

Excluding a jump in multifamily housing in the Northeast, starts would have fallen 4%, and new single-family home starts fell 5.3% to a 17-year low, Commerce said.

The increase was due in part to a change in New York City’s building code that allowed more apartment units, Bloomberg reported.

Economists had forecast that starts would decline to an annual rate of 960,000 units, Bloomberg said.

Building permits, an indicator of new construction, jumped 11.6% to an annual pace of 1.091 million.