Summary Housing starts fall 0.5% in NovemberSingle-family starts drop 4.1%; multi-family up 4.8%Building permits plunge 11.2%; single-family fall 7.1%WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - U.S. single-family homebuilding tumbled to a 2-1/2-year low in November and permits for future construction plunged as higher mortgage rates continued to depress housing market activity. We don't know about the rest of the economy, but the housing market is clearly in recession." Single-family housing starts, which account for the biggest share of homebuilding, dropped 4.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 828,000 units last month. The jump in multi-family housing projects offset some of the drag from single-family housing units, resulting in overall housing starts falling only 0.5% to a rate of 1.427 million units last month. The single-family housing market boomed early in the pandemic as Americans sought bigger properties to accommodate home offices.

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