April housing starts beat expectations

Construction of new homes swung up unexpectedly in April, as the number of new multifamily housing units grew. Overall, housing starts increased 8.2% for the month, to a seasonally adjusted annual total of 1.032 million, according to data from the Department of Commerce. The increase was the largest monthly jump since housing starts rose 14% in January 2006. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had predicted that housing starts in April would fall to 939,000. Housing starts in March fell 13.8% to 954,000, marking a larger decline than the 11.9% decrease to 947,000 units that was originally anticipated by the Commerce Department. Despite the increase, housing starts were 30.6% below the level of construction in April 2007. Housing starts for homes with five units or more increased 40.5% from March, to 326,000. Single-family housing starts fell 1.7% to 692,000 in April, marking the lowest level since 1991. Building permits increased 4.9% in April to a seasonally adjusted rate of 978,000, with single-family home permits rising 4% and multifamily permits growing 6.8%. Since April 2007, construction of new multifamily units has increased 28.9%, while construction of single-family homes is down 42.2%.