A surge of construction in the Midwestern US last month brought US homebuilding to its fastest pace since before the financial crisis, according to government data released today.
The May bump was driven almost entirely by faster construction of apartments and single-family homes in the Midwest region.
The area enjoyed warmer-than-usual weather after a snowy April and saw its biggest gains in more than four years.
But elsewhere in the US, construction stagnated or fell, according to the Commerce Department.
Industry analysts say rising materials costs and scarce labour have weighed on homebuilding, driving up prices amid strong demand.
Total housings starts rose 5% to an annual rate of 1.35 million, the fastest rate since July of 2007, overshooting economists' forecast of 1.32 million, the figures showed.
The result put construction 20.3% above the pace recorded in May of last year.
With the exception of the Midwest, the results were well within broad margins of error, making them subject to heavy revisions.
Commerce Department officials cautioned that trends may take as much as six months to appear in the data.
Meanwhile, permits for new construction, a sign of supply in the pipeline, fell 4.3% for the month to a rate of 1.3 million, undershooting expectations in the second monthly decline in a row, possibly reacting to falling home sales.
Construction in the closely watched single-family segment rose 3.9% despite declining in the West and South and rising only moderately in the Northeast.
In the Midwest, however, overall housing construction soared 62.2% to reach an annual rate of 266,000 units, the fastest pace since September of 2006 and the biggest monthly jump since February of 2014.
Single-family housing in the Midwest grew by a slower but still very strong 44.4% to a 156,000-unit annual rate, also the largest increase since 2014.
