U.S. homebuilders unexpectedly ramped up thei𒅌r efforts in May, welcome news in a housing market suffering from longstanding shortages.

If builders keep up the pace they set in May, they would begin work on 1.63 million single and multi-family housing units in one year, up from 1.34 million in April, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That was the biggest month-to-month change in the seasonally-adjusted annual rate of housing starts since 1990. In terms of percentage change, the 22% monthly jump was the largest since 2016 and made for a 5.7% increase over the last 12 months. 

Housing starts blew past the 1.39 million annual rate that economists had expec🧸ted for May, according to the median forecast of economists polled by Dow Jones News♏wires and the Wall Street Journal. 

The jump in homebuilding, if it proves to be a sustained trend, could bring relief to a U.S. housing market experiencing high prices, high mortgage rates, and few homes f🌌or sale—trends that have made 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:affording a home difficult, especially for first-time buyers. Multiple studies by different researchers have shown a worsening housing shortage, with a recent Realtor.com analysis estimating the U.S. has 2.3 million fewer housing units than it needs.

Despite high demand, home sales have suffered since 2022. 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Mortgage rates more than doubled, eroding the buying power of would-be purchasers and discouraging homeowners from selling their🔯 properties, keeping for-sale inventories low. 

“Developers may have finally found their footing in what has been a challenging environment for sales,” economists at First Trust wrote in a commentary. “It looks like some of the sticker shock from the rapid run-up in financing costs last year is wearing off.”

Economists consider the Census statistics on housing starts to be highly volatile and prone to significant revisions, tending to jump up and down ൩from month to month—double-digit percentage changes aren’t uncommon. Even so, May’s increase was unusually large. 

The report on construction starts underscores the improving outlook for those in the business of building houses. An index measuring homebuilder confidence has risen for each of the past six months, according to a survey by the National Association of Homebuilders released Monday.

In June, more builders viewed conditions as good rather than poor in the survey, the first time that’s happened since July 2022.