Despite the hype of soaring mortgage applications (refis, not purchases) and homebuilder stocks, housing starts tumbled 0.9% MoM in May (drastically missing expectations for a 0.3% rise), and while permits rose a better than expected 0.3% MoM, it remains very flat for the last six months.

Multi-family permits fell in May (to 820k) as single-family rose modestly (to 449k)...

The better than expected print for overall starts (at 1.294mm), was thanks to a massive spike in rental units...