Housing starts were surprisingly weak in June, the Census Bureau reports. The consensus forecast was looking for a modest gain to a 1.026 million annualized rate. Instead, the actual number dipped to 893,000—the lowest since last September. Newly issued permits for housing construction suffered a similar setback. In fact, housing has been a weak spot in the economy this year and today’s release doesn’t tell us otherwise. But the outlook for the sector isn’t as dark as it appears when focusing on the latest monthly changes. As we’ll see, the annual growth for starts and permits leaves more room for optimism. Not a lot, but there’s a decent if still unproven case for thinking that the housing sector is stabilizing, albeit at a substantially slower rate of growth vs. 2012 and early 2013.
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