Some Housing Hope from New Homes. From Marketplace, I'm Sabrie Benashore, in for David Brancaccio.

Over the past few months, construction of new homes in the U.S. has been all over the place.

Starts fell dramatically in August.

Back up in September, held steady in October.

Overall, starts were 4% and change lower in October

than a year before, but there is one type of home that looks

like it was booming that month. Construction of single family homes was up 13% from October 2022.

As Marketplace's Justin Ho reports, all of that new construction

is supporting both the housing market

and the overall economy.

This time a year ago, housing construction was depressed.

Mortgage rates were rising very quickly.

Home builders were very worried about the future and they pulled back very heavily on housing

starts.

That's Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American.

He says this year mortgage rates are still up there,

but home builders have realized they have an advantage.

Demand for homes is high, but there are not enough existing homes

on the market.

All of that is good news for new home building.

If you build it, they will buy it,

is generally the premise here.

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