Mubasher: The US Census Bureau, the US Department of Housing, the Urban Development on Friday jointly released residential construction statistics for July.

Privately-owned housing starts came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.191 million starts last July, dropping 4% lower than the revised June estimate of 1.241 million, and slightly 0.6% above the rate of 1.184 million seen in the same month of the preceding year, according to the official data.

Privately-owned housing units authorised under building permits surged by 8.4% last month to an adjusted annual rate of 1.336 million, compared with the previous month’s revised 1.232 million.

Privately-owned housing completions grew by 7.2% to an adjusted annual rate of 1.250 million completions during last July, from the revised estimate of 1.166 million in the prior month, and 6.3% up from 1.176 million the year before.

Single-family housing starts totalled 876,000 during the month, which was 1.3% month-on-month higher.

Permits for single-family housing units rose by 1.8% month-on-month to 838,000 permits last July, while authorisations for five-or-more unit buildings recorded 453,000, the report showed.

Completed single-family housing units climbed by 4.3% to 918,000 units last month, compared with the previous month when they recorded a revised total of 880,000.

By 12:34 pm GMT, the US dollar index rose by 0.16% to 98.30.