?EUR??,,????'??The small overall increase in total housing starts does not signal the end of the housing downswing,?EUR??,,????'?? said NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders. ?EUR??,,????'??All of the gain occurred on the multifamily side, which is subject to sizeable month-to-month volatility, and single-family starts actually registered a slight decline following downward revisions to both April and May. Looking toward future single-family production, permit authorizations fell to their lowest level since December of 1996 and now stand 43 percent below the recent peak in the fall of 2005.?EUR??,,????'??

Starts of new single-family homes slipped by 0.2 percent during June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.151 million units, 21.6 percent below a year earlier.

Multifamily housing starts, on the other hand, increased 12.5 percent during the month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 316,000, which was 9.7 percent below the rate of June 2006.

Total building permits fell 7.5 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 1.406 million units and were down 25.2 percent from a year earlier.

Single-family permit issuance last month fell 4.1 percent to 1.019 million units, 27.5 percent below a year earlier, while multifamily permits declined 15.3 percent to 387,000 units, which was 18.4 percent below the annual rate set in June 2006.