America just filed the most permits to build new homes in 8 years

Building permits for new residential construction in the U.S. have surged to their highest level since August 2007, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Preliminary data showed 1,275,000 permits were filed in June, up 12 percent from May and 25 percent from May 2014. Here’s the chart:

Marketwatch’s Rex Nutting tweeted that it’s possible an expiring tax credit for apartment buildings in New York City may have driven the spike.

But housing starts also just had their best back-to-back readings in eight years (they fell slightly in May).

It’s a good sign for the economy.

But whether young adults plan to buy any of these units remains up for debate. Depending on which housing or lending firm you ask, 55 percent of “millennials” plan to buy a home in the next two years; 92 percent plan to do so in the next four years. But at the same time, two-thirds of 24-35 year-olds said they need more income to do so.

The one sure-fire way to allow more young adults to enter the home-buying market is for the Fed to keep interest rates low. And Bloomberg’s Tim Duy says there is still no sign Fed Chair Janet Yellen plans to raise them.

“The ease with which policymakers backed down from a June rate hike speaks to their concerns about the fragility of the economy,” he writes. “They are unwilling to risk undermining the expansion they so carefully helped to nurture, nor do they see pressing reason from inflation data to do so.”

Rob covers business, economics and the environment for Fusion. He previously worked at Business Insider. He grew up in Chicago.