19 June 2001, 16:33  US Housing Starts-OVERVIEW

--US May housing starts -0.4% to 1.622-mln-unit rate
--US May housing permits +2.1% to 1.621 million
--US April housing starts revised to +2.3% from +1.5%
--US April starts rate revised to 1.629 million from 1.609 million
--US May single-family starts -0.2%; April revised to +7.0% from +6.7%
By Andrew Williams
Washington, June 19 (BridgeNews) - Despite rising mortgage applications, the housing market showed signs of leveling off in May as ground-breaking on new homes edged down 0.4%, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. But starts remained firm at a greater-than-expected seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.622 million units and building permits, an indicator of future activity, rose 2.1% to an annual pace of 1.621 million, also higher than forecast.
* * * Private analysts had expected 1.600 million starts, down from April's revised 1.629 million, and permits of 1.575 million, also below the 1.587 million of the prior month.
The housing market, boosted mainly by lower mortgage rates, has remained one of the few signs of strength in the U.S. economy over the past year, but analysts now wonder if its upward trend is now leveling off.
WHAT WAS EXPECTED:
Estimates for May housing starts ranged from 1.550 million to 1.643 million, according to a BridgeNews survey. Estimates for building permits ranged from 1.550 million to 1.603 million.
SINGLE- AND MULTI-FAMILY STARTS:
--Single-family housing starts slipped 0.2% to a rate of 1.291 million units in May.
--Multi-family starts, which often swing sharply from month to month, rose 0.7% to 300,000 units.
REGIONAL ACTIVITY:
--The Midwest, where starts surged 15.8%, led new housing activity in May.
They also climbed in the West, rising 2.9%. However, starts tumbled 28.3% in the Northeast and they declined 1.9% in the South.
DETAILS:
--In May, not seasonally adjusted starts totaled 155,700 units, up 1.8% from a year earlier.
--Building permits also totaled 155,700 on an unadjusted basis, up 4.6% from May 2000.
--For the year so far, starts totaled 655,300, down 0.7% from the comparable 2000 period.

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