February Housing Starts:

• February housing starts fell 8.7 percent from January and 9.9 percent from a year ago, to 1.16 million units (SAAR) according to the Census Bureau. Single-family starts fell 17 percent from January and 10.6 percent from a year ago; multifamily starts were up 23.5 percent month-over-month and down 5.4 percent year-over-year.
• Housing permits dropped 1.6 percent from January and were down 2 percent from a year ago.
• National housing completions rose 4.5 percent from January and 1.1 percent from a year earlier.

Winter weather had an impact on home construction in February, with housing starts taking a step backward from the momentum of January’s report. Many attributed January's strong release — which broke a streak of four straight monthly declines and improved market conditions for buyers — specifically to mortgage rates retreating from multiyear highs, a recovering stock market and a less ambitious interest rate outlook. Today's lackluster release is likely due to poor weather conditions, which led to a decline in construction activity and jobs from the month prior. What starts activity there was was driven largely by the volatile multifamily sector. The outlook for home construction should improve as we turn the corner into spring, but that could take longer in parts of the country where flooding continues into late March. Permits have shown strong increases in the past few months, and rosy market conditions remain.

census link: https://ift.tt/29BDoAx

jobs link: https://ift.tt/2iNRbae

The post February Housing Starts: appeared first on Zillow Research.

via February Housing Starts: