Mubasher: The US Census Bureau, the US Department of Housing, the Urban Development on Tuesday jointly issued residential construction statistics for last May.

Privately-owned housing starts reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.269 million starts in May, which is 0.9% lower than the revised April estimate of 1.281 million, and 4.7% below the rate of 1.332 million seen in the same month of the previous year, according to the official data.

Privately-owned housing units authorised under building permits inched up by 0.3% last month to an adjusted annual rate of 1.294 million, compared with the preceding month’s revised 1.290 million.

Privately-owned housing completions plunged by 9.5% to an adjusted annual rate of 1.213 million completions during last May, from the revised estimate of 1.340 million in the previous month, and 2.8% up from 1.248 million a year ago.

Permits for single-family housing units rose by 3.7% month-on-month to 815,000 permits in May, while authorisations for five-or-more unit buildings posted a rate of 442,000, the report showed.

Completed single-family housing units fell by 5% to 890,000 units last month, compared with the prior month when they recorded a revised total of 937,000.

By 12:33 pm GMT, the US dollar index went up by 0.06% to 97.62.