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

Privately-owned housing units authorised under building permits fell by 2.7% last September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.387 million, compared with the revised August estimate of 1.425 million.

Privately-owned housing starts came in at a rate of 1.256 million starts last month, dropping by 9.4% from the preceding month’s revised 1.386 million, yet the rate came 1.6% above 1.236 million seen in the same month of the preceding year.

Privately-owned housing completions dropped by 9.7% to an adjusted annual rate of 1.139 million completions during last September, from the revised estimate of 1.262 million in the preceding month, and 1% below from 1.232 million the year before.

Permits for single-family housing units edged up by 0.8% month-on-month to 882,000 permits last month, while authorisations for five-or-more unit buildings totalled 470,000, the report showed.

Single-family housing starts totalled 918,000 during the month, which was 0.3% month-on-month higher.

Completed single-family housing units fell by 8.6% to 852,000 units last September, compared with the preceding month when they came in at 932,000.

By 12:53 pm GMT, the US dollar index fell by 0.21% to 97.7960.