Starts Jumped in June While Permits Pulled Back
The Census Bureau and HUD reported privately-owned housing starts at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,427,000 in June 2026, a 19% jump from May 2026’s revised 1,199,000 and 3.5% higher than June 2025’s 1,379,000. Building permits told a different story over the same month: a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,367,000, down 3.0% from May 2026’s revised 1,410,000 and down 2.3% from a year earlier.
Starts and permits usually move together over time, since a permit is the step that precedes breaking ground. A month where starts jump while permits fall is more often noise, weather delays clearing a backlog, timing shifts between metro areas, than a clean signal, and it is worth watching whether starts hold at this new pace or permits pull the number back down in the months that follow.
New Supply Competes With the Wholesale Pipeline, It Does Not Replace It
New construction and wholesaled homes are not selling to the same buyer in most cases, a builder’s finished product competes on price and warranty against a fix-and-flip buyer’s renovated resale, and both sit downstream of an entirely separate supply: the 64,348 single-family homes and condos flipped in the first quarter of 2026 alone, 8% of all US home sales that quarter. A jump in new starts adds to the total housing stock a buyer can choose from, which can put pressure on resale pricing at the margin, but it does nothing to change how many distressed, off-market sellers exist in a given county.
What it does change is the buyer conversation on the dispo side: a builder actively pulling permits in a submarket is itself a signal worth tracking, since builders are also a buyer channel for teardown and infill land deals, a distinct segment from the retail cash buyers most wholesalers sell to first.
The Numbers
Privately-owned housing starts hit a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,427,000 in June 2026, up 19% from May 2026’s revised 1,199,000 and up 3.5% from June 2025’s 1,379,000.
US Census Bureau and HUD, "New Residential Construction, June 2026"
Building permits ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,367,000 in June 2026, down 3.0% from May 2026’s revised 1,410,000 and down 2.3% from June 2025’s 1,399,000.
US Census Bureau and HUD, "New Residential Construction, June 2026"
64,348 single-family homes and condos were flipped in Q1 2026, 8% of all US home sales that quarter, a separate supply of resale competition new construction sits alongside.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- US Census Bureau and HUD, "New Residential Construction, June 2026"
- ATTOM, Q1 2026 Home Flipping Report