This week offers a couple of key reports for the industry, namely mass housing starts and permits.

I thought this bit of encouraging news from Joe Clements on Globe St. was nice to read. It seems though that every bid of good news in this vein lately has been delivered with a caveat. Time will tell.

BOSTON-The state has outperformed the US in early 2007, says a new report. That appears to be a good but perhaps temporary trend. Joe Clements BOSTON-The Massachusetts economy is again taking a different path than the rest of the country, according to a study issued this week by Jones Lang LaSalle. These statewide improvements come as national GDP growth rate cooled to just 0.7% in the first quarter. But the good news for Massachusetts might be only a temporary trend, and the report warns of inherent difficulties that could ultimately derail recent gains enjoyed by Massachusetts.

If the US continues downward, construction and real estate sectors could be adversely affected, says JLL, whereas it notes MassBenchmark’s Current Economic Index puts the state’s economic growth rate at 4.7% during Q1. The report further indicates that 5,000 jobs were added in the first quarter, well above the pace of 3,000 for that same period in 2006. There was a jump of nearly 30,000 jobs between Q1 ‘06 and Q1 ‘07, according to JLL, which considers the first three months of the year to be the best quarter in Massachusetts since the start of 2003. (Click here for the full story)