Home starts continue to falter

The woes of the residential real-estate market took their toll of new home construction with building starts of houses and apartments down to its lowest level in over a decade, the Department of Commerce reported today. The Department of Commerce report said construction began on 1.353 million new homes and apartments in 2007, the lowest number since 1993, and down 24.8% from the previous year for the largest decrease since 1980. In December 1.1 million new housing units started, down 14.2% from November and lowest reported numbers since May of 1991. December’s new home building numbers are also down 38.2% from December 2006. The geographic breakdown of new housing construction from November to December showed declines in each region with the Midwest at -30.8%, the Northeast at - 25.8% the West at - 19.6% and the South at -3.3%. The west had the largest year to year decrease in 2007 with a 27.8% drop.