Housing starts dropped 0.5% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.427 million units, according to reuters.com. Economists expected starts to come in at a rate of 1.400 million units.
Applications for building permits, a good indication of future activity, fell 11.2% to 1.342 million units in November.
Single-family housing starts fell 4.1% to a rate of 828,000 units, and multifamily starts rose 4.8% to a rate of 584,000 units. Building permits for single-family homes declined 7.1% to a rate of 781,000 units, and permits for multifamily homes fell 17.9% to a rate of 509,000.
