A weak housing market received a small boost from apartment construction last month, the Commerce Department said in a Tuesday report. Despite the boost, the overall outlook remained dim as applications for building permits fell to the lowest level in 14 months. Construction of new homes and apartments rose 1.7 percent last month, the Commerce Department said. Driving the increase was a 32.6 percent surge in apartment and condominium construction - a small fraction of the market. Still, requests for building permits, considered a good sign of future activity, fell 3.1 percent. The July increase in housing construction pushed total activity to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000 units. Building activity in June was weaker than first reported. It fell 8.7 percent to an annual rate of 537,000 units, the slowest pace since October of last year. Housing construction got a boost earlier in the year when the government offered buyers up to $8,000 in federal tax credits. But after the incentives expired at the end of April, sales and construction activity slumped. Construction of apartments and condominiums jumped to an annual rate of 114,000 units. The bigger single-family sector declined 4.2 percent, falling to an annual rate of 432,000 units. The drop in building permits left applications for new construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 565,000, the slowest pace since May 2009.
