Housing starts: the regional picture
The latest residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau was received with open arms by the hardware and building supply industry. As a seasonally adjusted annual rate, total starts gained 21.7 percent compared to April, and single-family starts were up 18.5 percent.
As the interactive chart above reveals, the Midwest produced oversized gains: total starts here were up 66.9 percent, and up 24.2 percent from a year ago.
Meanwhile the West and Northeast produced numbers that were at odds with each other, as mulit-family housing activity clearly picked up in the West. The West region showed monthly and year-over-year gains in total starts, but monthly and year-over-year declines in single-family starts.
That scenario was reversed in the Northeast, where total starts were down for the month and the year, while single-family starts were up for the month and the year.
The above chart details the total-starts, single-family-starts and building-permit activity in each of the four regions.
