Housing Starts Pick Up in February

March 27, 2009
Nationwide housing starts turned upward for the first time in eight months this February, posting a 22.2 percent gain that was due primarily to a big

Nationwide housing starts turned upward for the first time in eight months this February, posting a 22.2 percent gain that was due primarily to a big bump on the often-volatile multi-family side, according to numbers released from the U.S. Commerce Department on March 17.

“While welcome news, this gain only reflects a modest rebound from January, which was the worst month in history for new-home production,” said National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Chief Economist David Crowe. “The majority of the gain was due to characteristic volatility on the multi-family side, while single-family housing starts were up just over one percent for the month.”

“Builders did pull a larger volume of single-family permits in February, suggesting a glimmer of hope for the prime home buying season, which is near at hand,” said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. “That said, we realize there's a need to be extremely cautious in terms of new building activity going forward, because there's still quite a lot of inventory out there that needs to be absorbed as foreclosures continue to flood the market in many areas.”

Total U.S. housing starts rose 22.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units in February. This gain reflected an 82.3 percent surge to a 226,000-unit pace on the multi-family side and a 1.1 percent gain to a 357,000-unit pace on the single-family side. Building permits, which can be an indicator of future building activity, rose 3 percent overall to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 547,000 units in February. This reflected an 11 percent gain in single-family permits to 373,000 units and a 10.8 percent decline in multi-family permits to 174,000 units.

By region, building permits recorded a 27.6 percent gain in the Northeast, no change in the Midwest, a nearly 6 percent improvement in the South, and a 13.6 percent decline in the West in February.

New Privately Owned Housing Units Started

(Thousands of units, seasonally adjusted annual rate)

Period Total 1 unit 5 units or more Northeast Midwest South West February1 ‘09 583 357 212 66 84 332 101 January2 ‘09 477 353 118 35 53 255 134 December2 ‘08 558 394 155 63 77 284 134 November ‘08 655 456 181 56 106 355 138 October ‘08 767 536 221 76 121 409 161 September ‘08 824 551 254 112 138 410 164 February ‘08 1,107 722 356 129 154 577 247

1-Preliminary; 2-Revised; Note: Detail may not add to total because of rounding.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census