Housing Starts Climb

Total April housing starts were up 5.8% compared to March at a seasonally adjusted rate of 672,000 and up 40.9% compared with April 2009’s rate of 477,000, according to the Commerce Department’s monthly residential construction report. However, the overall housing start rate is deceiving because starts of multifamily projects with five or more units actually fell 23.6% in April compared with March. Single-family starts were up 10.2% month over month, to a seasonally adjusted level of 593,000. On an annual basis, April's single-family starts were up 53.6% and multifamily starts for projects of five or more units were down 15%. Starts in the Northeast and Midwest carried the bulk of the sequential monthly increase, up 23.9% and 16.7%, respectively. The South also saw a 7% boost; however, starts were down 13.3% in the West.

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