Home construction up 4.9% in October to 1.53 million

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Home construction rose 4.9 per cent in October as homebuilding remains one of the bright spots of the economy.

The increase pushed home construction to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.53 million homes and apartments and followed a more modest gain of 1.9 per cent in September.

Building permits, a good barometer of future activity, remained at a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.55 million annualized units, effectively unchanged from September. The figure remains up 2.8 per cent from a year earlier, showing how strong the housing market was over the summer despite the pandemic.

Several reports over the last two months have shown the housing market cooling off after a tremendous summer, but that is not surprising. The fall and winter are typically slow times for home buying and home construction, mostly due to the weather.