Single-home construction went down in October, while authorizations given for starting construction jumped to a 15-year high, revealing a market discrepancy with high demand but a significant shortage of supply. Single-family housing starts dropped 3.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.039 million units last month, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday. This is the lowest level seen since August last year. The numbers fell throughout the country with the largest reductions in Northeast, Midwest, and West. “Residential housing construction activity continues to flounder,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS in New York, to Reuters. “There are zoning problems, higher land costs, a lack of labor, and inflation has inflated the cost of raw building materials.” Although economists polled by Reuters had predicted single-family home sales to reach 1.576 million units, the numbers came up to just 1.520 million units for October. In …