When the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development release their monthly New Residential Construction report, it comes with three components. The first tracks building permits, measuring the number of permits to build new homes pulled during the month. The second category is housing starts, which tracks how many new homes started construction. The final component is completions. Completions gauge how many new homes were finished during the past month. In June, they surged. In fact, privately owned housing completions were up 10.1 percent in June from the month before and 15.5 percent higher than last year at the same time. The other two components also saw improvement but the spiking number of completed new homes is a sign that more inventory is coming to the market. That helps buyers, as more supply helps tame price increases while offering shoppers more options. (source)