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6) For next week.
Proceedings:
On housing starts, a "start" of construction is defined when excavation begins for the footings or foundation of a building. If it is a multi-family building, then it's the start of anything related to construction. See
https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/definitions/index.html#start
for details with respect to what that means. Note that this glossary includes other definitions we may want, such as regions of the US, definitions related to construction/housing, etc.
With respect to the economic indicator related to housing starts – there is a construction price indexes – there are several indicators and related surveys, such as new single family houses sold, new single family houses under construction, comparison of price indexes for houses sold vs. houses under construction; existing home sales – there is an index from the National Association of Realtors (which Census references to come up with new homes sales (from Census) vs. existing homes sales (from NAR)).
These are price indices / construction price indices, which are more like a producer price index rather than consumer price index.
BLS publishes information about non-residential construction under PPI, but not residential construction, although BLS publishes information on employment under residential construction.