Across the country, building permits and housing starts in August were both up year over year. But both were lower than economists expected.
There were 891,000 housing starts during the month, up 19 percent from Aug. 2012, but lower than the 900,000 forecasted by economists surveyed by Yahoo Finance.
Meanwhile, 918,000 building permits were issued during the month, up 11 percent from last year. Economists had forecasted 945,000 permits.
The Northeast had 125,000 building permits issued in August, up from 82,000 a year ago.
