Housing Starts, Building Permits Drop Sharply in February

摘要

Housing activity was down across the board in February, with sharp reductions in single-family and multifam-ily starts and permits. The seasonally adjusted annual housing starts rate plunged 22.5 percent, from 618,000 units in January to 479,000 units in February. The single-family starts rate dropped 11.8 percent, from 425,000 to 375,000, and the multifamily rate fell 46.1 percent, from 193,000 to 104,000 units. The two-month starts total dropped from 79,600 units in 2010 to 72,200 this year, with single-family starts down from 67,000 to 52,000 and multifamily starts up from 12,700 to 20,200.