Housing Starts Climb 4.8 Percent

Housing starts rebounded in June as favorable mortgage rates and job and income growth renewed builders’ confidence in consumer demand.

Many analysts expect the housing market to level off or perhaps slip slightly later this year as pent-up demand becomes satisfied in an economic expansion now in its seventh year.

But, they added, builders will remain busy this summer rebuilding new-home inventories that represented in May a supply of 4.1 months at that month’s sales rate, smallest in 26 years.

“It’s steady as she goes for the rest of the summer,” contended economist David Lereah of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “Then, the numbers start coming down.”

Builders boosted construction of new homes and apartments by 4.8 percent in June, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.45 million, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. All regions except the Northeast shared in the gain.