Housing starts rose 4.4% in December to an annualized pace of 1.09 million, much better than expectations.
Expectations were for housing starts to rise 1.2% from the prior month to an annualized pace of 1.04 million.
Building permits, however, declined 1.9% to a pace of 1.03 million, missing expectations.
Building permits were expected to rise 0.8% from last month to an annualized pace of 1.06 million.
This report follows homebuilder sentiment data on Tuesday that showed sentiment among homebuilder remaining elevated, but moving roughly sideways month-on-month.
More to come ...