Today’s announcement that housing construction starts jumped 15 percent in September to the highest level in four years was the latest in a series of encouraging signs for the U.S. housing market. The surge exceeded the expectations of analysts who had forecasted a 2.7 percent gain, reports The Washington Post in the article, “What a housing recovery will look like.” From the article:

For months, a wide range of indicators of the state of the housing market have been pointing to improvement, with evidence that prices, sales and construction activity are all starting to rise after five lean years. It is still anybody’s guess how long the improvement will last and whether the worst is truly over for housing. But Wednesday’s numbers are the most solid evidence yet that the answer is “Yes.”