Spike in home building
New home construction rose in November to its highest level in nearly two years, as multi-family starts and record-breaking low mortgage rates fuel building activity. Lending remains tight, but housing starts spiked 9.3 percent from October to November and are up 24.3 percent from November 2011, beating nearly all economists’ predictions for the month.
In addition to a spike in housing starts, building permits rose 5.7 percent from October are 20.7 percent year over year, welcome news after an extended period of depression in new home construction. The surge is not expected to continue at this rate as the growth is not sustainable and no sector is looking for another bubble, but it is hopeful news for one of the hardest hit sectors.
The shining star of the building industry remains multi-family communities that are breaking ground as the volume of multi-family starts have nearly tripled from last year as the sector experienced the largest number of starts since September 2008 which is around the time the economy collapsed.
Multi-family construction is in a growth period after a very long dry spell that many say caused immigrants to return to Mexico for lack of construction jobs, and many construction companies shut down, leaving a massive pool of potential employees for multi-family construction companies.
