housing start
7
5.0
- noun
- /ˈhaʊzɪŋ stɑrt/
- Specialized
:
inicio de construcción
- Last week's national housing starts and permits report is the best economic news in a long time.
- forecast housing starts
Home builder confidence will need to grow before housing starts increase.
- Home builder confidence will need to grow before housing starts increase.
- And some people today are cheering that the housing starts month over month data actually didn't come in as bad as expected.
Examples
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The U.S. Department of Commerce said Wednesday that single-family housing starts in August hit 535,000 homes, the highest monthly number since April 2010.
Blog text (21) -
New housing starts now average nearly 3,500 per year in the rapidly growing area west of St. Louis.
Academic text (2000) -
Housing starts, sales, and prices are going up now and increasing.
Blog text (3) -
The next chart shows the relationship between home prices, housing starts, GDP, and the stock market.
Blog text (33) -
Home builder confidence will need to grow before housing starts increase.
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I had to lay off the workers last year when new housing starts tanked in our area.
Blog text (23) -
Intermittent signs of recovery have cropped up in such areas as housing starts, auto sales, and factory orders.
Blog text (30) -
It's a large and complicated entity, and economists use a variety of economic indicators such as housing starts, interest rates, money supply, and more, which, taken together, give them a holistic view of the state of the entity.
Blog text (17) -
With news headlines that are no less constant than they are sensational, focusing on housing starts, inventory, home prices, and foreclosures, it's hard for most people to decipher just where we are on the roller coaster.
Blog text (32) -
A recent survey revealed that housing starts increased significantly last quarter, indicating a boost in the construction sector.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the beginning of construction on a new house or residential building' is directly derivable from combining 'housing' (residential buildings) with 'start' (beginning). This noun+noun composition follows common compounding patterns and, aside from its use as an economic indicator, is transparent to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
The noun housing start comes from the simple, literal moment when builders begin work on a new house, when the ground is broken and the first foundation is poured. Because this marks the real 'beginning' of building, counting housing starts is used as a quick 'sign' of how active construction and the economy are.