Housing starts fall 11% in October

Housing starts hit a seven-month low in October, falling 11.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,060,000 -- which is also 1.8% below October 2014.

The good news? The setback is looking fairly temporary thanks to strong activity in building permits: a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,150,000, up 4.1% above September's revised rate of 1,105,000.

September was a blockbuster month for starts, which reached a revised estimate of 1,191,000.

In the single-family market, starts fell only 2.4% to 722,000 in October, compared with the revised September figure of 740,000. Single-family permits broke even, however -- up 2.4% to 711,000

Additionally, declines were not universal across the country. Both the South and West faced double-digit declines (18.6% and 16.2%, respectively), but the Northeast and Midwest saw improvements: 10.2% and 15.0%, respectively.