New Home Constructions Rise, Housing Permits Fall

Last month new home construction rose nearly 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000, according to the Commerce Department. The number is under the 555,000 that economists had expected new home construction starts to rise to, according to an estimate from Briefing.com, but any type of rise in today’s murky housing climate is a positive one. Despite this quasi-encouraging tidbit, applications for new building permits dropped in July to a seasonally adjusted rate of 565,000, down 3.1% from a revised 583,000 in June. To read more about the state of the housing market on CNNMoney, click here.