Housing starts dip in March
Privately‐owned housing starts in March were down for the year, but up compared to February, according to the residential construction report released Tuesday morning by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Total starts were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,420,000, down 0.8 percent from the downwardly revised February figure of 1,432,000.
Single‐family housing starts in March were at a rate of 861,000; this is 2.7 percent above the revised February figure of 838,000. The March rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 542,000.
The interactive graphic above provides details for total starts, single-family starts and building permits across the bureau’s four geographic regions.
The National Association of Home Builders took cautious optimism from the increase in the single-family metric.
“With builder sentiment climbing for four consecutive months and single-family starts continuing to move gradually higher from low levels since the beginning of the year, this indicates that a turning point for single-family construction will occur later this year after declines in 2022,” said Alicia Huey, chairman of the NAHB and a custom home builder and developer from Birmingham, Alabama. “However, builders are still challenged by ongoing supply-chain issues and a skilled labor shortage.”
NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz expects “choppiness” ahead, “with the 2023 data posting significant year-over-year weakness before improving on a sustained basis,” he said. “The multifamily market softened in March, and we anticipate ongoing declines for apartment construction in the months ahead due to tighter lending conditions in the commercial real estate sector.”
