Let us review the latest residential construction figures for July. When looking at month-over-month data, housing starts experienced a decline of 12.4%. This drop was noticeably larger than the estimated decrease of 5.9%, representing a significant shift from the substantial 19.0% increase seen in the prior period. On the other hand, building permits showed encouraging growth by rising 5.0%. This easily exceeded the modest 0.6% increase that was originally estimated, marking a positive turnaround from the previous 2.6% reduction.