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Weak Apartment Construction Offsets Gain in Single-Family Homes
Housing starts plunged to a record low in April due largely to a steep drop in apartment building, although there was a rebound in single-family construction. The Commerce Department reported that construction of new homes and apartments fell 12.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 units in April, the lowest pace on records going back a half-century. And, to make matters worse, building permits, a barometer of future housing construction, declined 3.3% to a record low annual rate of 494,000. On a positive note, starts of single-family homes rose 2.8% in April to an annual rate of 368,000, following a 0.3% gain in March and no change in February. The improvement in single-family construction indicates that the three-year slide in housing may have already bottomed. However, in the more volatile multifamily sector, construction plunged 46.1% to an annual rate of 90,000 units after a 23% drop in March. Total housing construction fell 30.6% in the Northeast, 21.4% in the Midwest and 21.1% in the South. Starts jumped 42.5% out West.
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Date Last Updated: 05/20/2009
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