Sina US stocks, January 17-the number of new housing starts in the United States surged to a 13-year high in December, driven by low mortgage interest rates, stable job growth, and optimism among home buyers and builders. the housing market is showing a strong momentum as it enters the new year.

Housing starts rose 16.9% in December to an annual rate of 1.61 million units, compared with an upward revision of 1.375 million the previous month, according to government data released on Friday. The 16.9% increase was the biggest in three years, well above all expectations from the survey. Building permits fell 3.9 per cent to 1.42 million units in December.

The data show that economic growth was boosted again in the fourth quarter after housing construction made a positive contribution to economic growth in the third quarter of last year for the first time since the end of 2017. While the weather may have had an impact on the December data, demand for homes was boosted by near three-year lows in mortgage rates against a backdrop of resilient job markets and wage increases that helped enrich the wallets of potential home buyers.

Single-family housing starts rose 11.2 per cent to the highest level since mid-2007, although building permits for single-family homes fell 0.5 per cent. The start of multi-family housing jumped 29.8% to the highest level since 1986.

The full-year increase was more modest, with housing starts rising 3.2 per cent after rising 3.9 per cent in 2018. The number of building permits increased by 3.9% for the whole of 2019.

The strong number of new housing starts in December confirmed the jump in developer confidence. Us homebuilders' confidence index hit its highest two-month performance since 1999 in November and December, thanks to a surge in potential buyers and promising sales prospects.

The median of economists' survey was that the number of new housing starts increased to 1.38 million, with the highest forecast of 1.48 million.