This morning the Census Bureau reported that Housing Starts increased to 582,000 in June from May's upwardly revised 562,000. Year-over-Year starts are still down (-46.2%).

I'm unable to post graphs at the moment, but Calculated Risk has an excellent one, showing that housing starts are a leading indicator, always borttoming before the end of recessions. Note the recent strong turn-up in our current recession looks like the harbingers of recovery from past recessions.