Housing Starts Fall in July…June and May Revised Lower

A downturn in housing starts and building permits wasn’t what markets were expecting, but given how well the index had performed in the prior two months, the general trend continues to improve.

Privately-owned housing starts fell 1% to an annual pace of 581,000 in July, against expectations that they would advance 2.3% to 598k. Data from the prior two months was revised downwards slightly.

The report wasn’t just bad news though. The most important component continued on its upward path, as single-family housing starts climbed 1.7% to a rate of 490k â€