Construction on new homes improved for the first time this year in September 2014, according to the latest figures released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau.
The total housing production rose 6.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted 1.017 million units in September. The figure is up 17.8 percent from a year ago and is also above the 970,000 units mark in August. Building permits also increased 1.5 percent on a month-on-month basis.
Housing starts improved in all the regions of the United States with the West posting the highest growth of 13.9 percent.
Construction on new single-family homes picked up 1.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted 639,000 units, but the figure is still below the 9 percent from the post-recession period. Permits for this category slumped 0.5 percent this month.
Multi-family housing starts improved 16.7 percent to 371,000 units in September with permits jumping 4.8 percent in the sector.
While the fact that multi-family home construction is still running ahead of single-family homes show the lack of demand and faith in homeownership yet, experts say that the figures show a positive sentiment in the market.
"These numbers show starts returning to levels we saw earlier this summer, where they hovered around one million units. We are hopeful this pattern of modest growth will continue as we close out the year," Kevin Kelly, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), said in a statement.
David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide Insurance, attributed the improvement in housing starts to the strength in the jobs market. He also explained to Bloomberg that the demand for single-family homes improved compared to the months earlier as mortgage rates slipped to new lows last week.
But some are not yet fully confident about the housing market and its recovery.
"While the residential real estate market has definitely gotten better, which is good for the U.S. economy, it has not fully recovered. I believe there are several factors holding the housing market back from a complete recovery," John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, told Bloomberg in a separate interview.
