Summary Box: Home construction rose in June

JUNE SURGE: Builders broke ground on a seasonally adjusted 629,000 homes last month, a 14.6 percent increase from May. Still, that is roughly half the 1.2 million homes per year that economists say must be built to sustain a healthy housing market.

APARTMENT GAINS: Apartment and condo construction jumped more than 30 percent last month. Renting has become a preferred option for many Americans who lost their jobs and were forced to leave their homes.

SINGLE-FAMILY RISE: Single-family home construction, which makes up 70 percent of the market, saw the biggest increase since June 2009, when the recession officially ended. But analysts said the pace of 453,000 homes per year was still too depressed to signal a turnaround.