Housing starts move 3.3% higher in Nov. Construction of new homes increased 3.3 percent in November with the gain largely coming from single-family houses being built at the strongest pace in more than a decade. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground on homes last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million units. The increase marks a key moment in the recovery from the Great Recession: Builders started work on single-family houses at the fastest pace since September 2007, which was just a few months before the start of that economic downturn. Driving the rebound in home construction has been a shortage of existing properties being listed for sale. Fewer people are putting their property on the market, despite healthy demand from buyers because the unemployment rate is at a 17 year-low and mortgage rates remain at attractive levels. New construction has filled some of this gap with starts on single-family houses rising 8.7 percent