Building permits, housing starts and housing completions were all down in June, with elevated construction costs and rising mortgage rates to blame, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Housing and Urban development and National Association of Realtors.

According to government residential construction data, privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in June were 1,330,000, which is 3.7% below the revised May rate of 1,496,000. In addition, June housing permits were 15.3% below the June 2022 rate of 1,701,000.

However, single-family authorization in June were at a rate of 922,000, which was 2.2% above the revised May figure of 902,000. In addition, permits for buildings with or more unites were at a rate of 467,000 in June.

For housing starts, privately-owned housing starts in June were at 1,434,000, which is 8% below the May estimate of 1,559,000 and 8.1% below the June 2022 rate.

More worrisome for residential integrators that count new single-family homes as a large part of their business, single-family housing starts of 935,000 also fell in June, declining at a 7% rate from May. This comes despite five months of growth.

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Meanwhile, the June rate for units in buildings with five or more units was 482,000.

Privately-owned housing completions in June also dipped, with a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,468,000 declining 3.3% from May. However, this is 5.5% above the June 2022 rate, according to government data. Single-family housing completions in June of 986,000 were 2.8 below the May rate.

Existing home sales are also down this month, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), citing a national inventory shortage despite high buyer demand.

Even in the face of high mortgage rates, homes are selling quickly, as 67% of homes sold in June were on the market for less than a month, with a typical time-on-market of just 18 days, according to the NAR.

Housing inventory in June remained “historically low” at just 1.08 million units, the NAR says, adding that inventory is down 13.6% from a year ago.

Citing the Census Bureau data, the NAR says new-home construction isn’t making up the difference, with rising mortgage rates and high construction costs to blame.

In his biweekly newsletter, NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz describes the data as showing “the housing market [is] diverging.” Having been a strong performer for years, he notes that multifamily seems to have finally begun its long-expected decline, as multifamily permits also took a hit decreasing by 12.8% over last year.

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