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Residential building activity was up across the board in June, with numbers for permits, starts, and completions above where they were in May, according to a joint report issued Tuesday by HUD and the Census Bureau. However, the year-over-year numbers remain down for permits and starts, which is preventing housing supply from keeping up with demand.
Building permits for privately owned housing units in June were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1 point 15 million, which was 13 point 6 percent below June 2015’s rate. Trulia chief economist Ralph McLaughlin said that zoning issues were the likely cause of lagging permit numbers. June’s housing starts total of 1 point 19 million was 5 percent higher than may but down by 2 percent over-the-year.
The effects of last month’s vote by the U.K. to leave the European Union are starting to take hold in the U.S. mortgage market, where cautious but definitive optimism has sparked the refinancing sector. The July 2016 Economic and Housing Outlook report by Fannie Mae’s Economic & Strategic Research Group showed an upswing in predicted mortgage originations that flipped an expected 2 point 8 percent drop throughout the rest of this year to a 2 point 2 percent expected growth.
