World

Residential building permits up across US

Brian Bowling | Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, 12:18 p.m.

AFP/Getty Images

This photo taken on March 8, 2017 shows a construction worker installing a rooftop on to a new home being built in Fairfax, Virginia.

Developers and landowners planned more residential buildings this July compared to the previous year but started construction on fewer houses, according to the Census Bureau.

Building permits for privately owned housing nationwide increased by 4.1 percent from July 2016 to July 2017. Permits for single-family homes were up 13 percent, while permits for buildings with five or more units were down 11.7 percent.

Permits in the Northeast region, which includes Pennsylvania, were up 17 percent overall and 9.8 percent for single-family homes. The report doesn't provide data for states, counties or municipalities.

Housing starts were down 5.6 percent from July 2016 to July 2017 nationally, but starts on single-family homes were up 10.9 percent. In the Northeast, all housing starts were down 3.7 percent, but single-family starts were up 13.6 percent.

Housing completed in July was up 8.2 percent nationally and 13.5 percent in the Northeast. Housing that was under construction, but not finished, was up 3.4 percent nationally but down 3.1 percent in the Northeast.

Brian Bowling is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-1218, bbowling@tribweb.com or via Twitter @TribBrian.

More Nation/World

APEC leaders fail to agree on final communique

Trump speaks with CIA about Khashoggi killing, says there will be a report by Tuesday

2 dead in vintage World War II fighter crash after flyover

Recount adds to Florida's reputation for bungling elections

China, U.S. trade barbs in speeches at Pacific summit

TribLIVE commenting policy

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.