Housing Starts Pick Up in September

Posted on Oct 17, 2012

Concrete Forms (CC BY 2.0)

Just in time for the election, the Commerce Department reported that construction starts on houses and apartments in September increased at the fastest rate since the beginning of the recession.

Construction on single-family homes and apartments was started at a yearly rate of 872,000 in September, 15 percent more than the previous month, but still well below the 1.5 million seen before the recession.

Predictably, banking executives had optimistic things to say about the bounce-back in the housing market.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

BBC:

JP Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon said last week: “Importantly, we believe the housing market has turned the corner.”

His bank set aside less money to cover bad mortgage loans, as did Bank of America, which reported results earlier on Wednesday.

“If there was any doubt that the housing market was undergoing a recovery, even a modest one in the face of the terrible 2008 decline, those doubts should be erased by now,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG.

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