The pace of home building improved in the Colorado Springs area last month, while foreclosure filings might be leveling off, two new reports suggest.

Good news for the housing market? Not so fast, industry officials say:

• Building activity: El Paso County single-family home building permits totaled 105 in October, a 52.2 percent jump over the same month last year, according to the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department. October’s permit total is compared against a particularly bad month in October 2008, when just 69 single-family home building permits were pulled — one of the lowest monthly totals in many years.

Through the first 10 months of 2009, single-family permits totaled 950, down 15.6 percent from the same period in 2008 and a 51 percent decline from the same time in 2007.

• Outlook: “It illustrates a continuing weakness in the market,” Ralph Braden, board president of the Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs, said of the year-to-date numbers.