Are buyers really turned off about the current economic weakness and high unemployment rate that they choose to rent rather than own their own homes? Or is financing really hard to come buy for the single-family homes? Whatever the reason, single-family starts and permits in August have been outnumbered by multifamily numbers.

The Commerce Department released a report last Tuesday saying that the key to the residential market recovery, single-family starts, has risen to 4.3%. This, though, pales in comparison to multifamily starts – which include rental apartments and condominiums. Even permits statistics are better for multifamily – the number rose to 9.8% for multifamily but dropped 1.2% for single-family units.

Permits, which went down for single-family units, are considered more important than starts as they are seen by economists as ‘forward-looking’ indicators of building activity. The fact that there are more permits for multifamily vis-à-vis single-family means more and more people are looking at renting a house than owning one.

Lexington, Massachusetts’ IHS Global Insight’s senior principal economist Chris G. Christopher Jr. says, “Homeownership is no longer so desirable – or even possible – for as many households as before.”

Christopher further explains that residential housing demand is shifting from single-family to multifamily, with focus going from owner-occupied to rentals.

The recent numbers are not enough to keep economists’ spirits down, though. Economists are predicting a greater than anticipated number for existing home sales. They are positive that if this happens, the housing market will start doing a turnaround and giving out better numbers. The exact numbers will be released by the National Association of Realtors this coming Thursday.

Some, though, are not as optimistic. Looking at the 80-county Philadelphia August home sales, the increase was small. And this may be taken as an indicator of the numbers for the whole year.

According to Prudential Fox & Roach HomExpert, the August figures are higher than July by 6% but 29.6% lower than August 2009. As compared to June, when people rushed to meet the closing of the federal home tax credit, August sales are 46% lower.